


Torn Affections

by SlytherinLovesAGryffindor



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting, Angst, Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, Fluff, Healing, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Virginity, Oral Sex, POV Hermione Granger, POV Multiple, POV Severus Snape, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Smut, Time Travel, Time Turner (Harry Potter), Vaginal Sex, Young Severus Snape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:00:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29394447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlytherinLovesAGryffindor/pseuds/SlytherinLovesAGryffindor
Summary: Severus sacrificed everything for Lily’s son. His reputation, his freedom, his life, his second chance at love all belonged to the Boy Who Lived. Everything was his and it was a debt he willingly paid over the years for what he had caused. Even his final moments in Hermione’s presence were sacrificed in the name of keeping Potter alive and carrying out his sworn promise to Dumbledore.His final words of “Look at me,” had not been for the boy with the emerald eyes that had haunted him, but for the girl with warm caramel eyes who had restored his hope. The one who he would have loved with every piece of his tortured soul if second chances existed. But when you give your life and happiness up to right the wrongs of your youth, second chances do exist.For all he has sacrificed, Death offers to wipe the slate clean. Severus, as he is now, would be healed, his memory of the last twenty years erased, and de-aged to take the place of his eighteen year old self. In exchange, his younger self would come forward through time and get to live a life of his own, free of the Mark, free of two masters, and free to love again.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Severus Snape
Comments: 166
Kudos: 226





	1. Never Have I Ever... Been in Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went and did that thing, I said I would never do and began writing and posting a second story while also working on SCTT. Young Severus just would not leave me alone the last few days and I went ahead and took the plunge into double writing.
> 
> The chapters will get longer, this first one is a prologue of sorts to get things going.
> 
> My goal going forward is to maintain a twice a week update schedule for SCTT and a once a week update schedule for Torn Affections.
> 
> Of course without the work of my lovely Betas, Snapes_know_it_all and Slytherclaw1917, this would be a garbled, hard to decipher mess of a story, with notes for other works intermingled with my writing. These ladies do a wonderful job of editing and keeping me as on track as humanly possible.
> 
> As always, if you want to take the plunge with me, there is the Facebook group that will keep y'all abreast of any unexpected deviations from my updating, as well as have sneak peeks to this story and SCTT.
> 
> Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/401487450880977
> 
> As with SCTT, I do keep a Pinterest Board for TA filled with character images, setting inspiration, and all sorts of things that speak to me and help focus my mind on the story I want to tell. If y'all want, you can find that here, https://www.pinterest.com/SlytherinLovesAGryffindor/torn-affections/
> 
> I hope y'all enjoy this one, as much as I have loved developing it in my head.
> 
> Take care and be safe out there, wherever you may be reading from,
> 
> XOXO

_June 1997_

Hermione paced the small alcove that hid her and Luna as they watched Professor Snape’s empty classroom. Her heart was racing and her gut twisted a dozen times over, forming tight knots as she chewed yet another nail down to the quick. Feeling her teeth nip at the tender skin, she winced and snatched her hand away from her mouth, whipping around to begin another lap. It felt as though they had been waiting for hours outside of his classroom waiting to see if he would make a move with Dumbledore gone as Harry had predicted. With every minute that ticked past, more adrenaline was poured into her veins, making her blood hum as her body vibrated with sick anticipation. She knew something was coming, that things would never be the same after tonight, but she hoped and prayed that what she feared would not come to pass. Biting the nail bed of another finger, she swore under her breath, turning around to face the perceptive blonde that was watching her with her keen eyes.

“Hermione, why don’t you go see Professor Snape? He’s probably just as tense as you are and could use a friendly face right about now,” Luna said airily. “Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here for you,” she added, pulling her wand out of the chunky mauve cardigan she wore with a drifty smile. 

Her words had the same effect as ice water being dumped over Hermione’s head, shocking the adrenaline right out of her system. She gaped at her friend trying to think of something to say, anything at all, but her mind had short-circuited, replaying Luna’s words on a loop. She tried to open her mouth repeatedly to form some sort of rebuttal but all that would come out was a strangled, croaking noise. Giving up, she snapped her mouth shut, ready to resume her pacing circles and pretend Luna’s commentary hadn’t happened when the clocktower echoed through the corridors announcing the last quarter hour before midnight.

The knots in the pit of her stomach wound themselves tighter, making her wince against the anxiety induced pain. Bringing another finger to her mouth to chew on, she saw the unsteady movement of her hand and admitted her defeat.

“I’ll be right back,” she said hesitantly, not meeting the girl’s silvery blue hued eyes. 

Luna gave a soft chirp of acknowledgment before stepping from her corner of the alcove, to keep an eye on the corridors.

Not giving what she was about to do a second thought, Hermione darted out from their hiding spot, and raced the few paces to Professor Snape’s classroom, banging the door open, with enough flourish to make him envious of her entrance. The sound resonated through the classroom, prompting the dark, imposing professor to leap out of his office with his long ebony wand trained on her. She quickly threw her hands up to show she was unarmed and awaited for him to assess her.

Seeing him lower his wand, she raced up the aisle of desks and took the stairs up to his office two at a time, launching herself into his arms when she reached the landing. The metal buttons that lined his frock coat, cooled the heat of her skin as she held on tight to the soft wool, breathing in the smell of old parchment and fresh ink that blended with his eucalyptus and juniper scented soap. 

“Come inside,” he said gruffly, removing her hold on him, to guide her into his office. 

She took in the disarray that was his desk with papers and books strewn about and an upended well of ink, dripping onto the stone floors. In the center of his chaotic desk, was a black, leather duffle with clothes stuffed inside, the sleeve of a white dress shirt hanging out of the corner. Turning to look at him as he left the door open with a slight crack, she blinked back her tears. 

“Can you still not tell me what is going to happen?” She asked with a sniffle.

Hermione tilted her head back to meet the dark depths of his eyes as he advanced on her. His rough palm came up to cup her face, his long fingers disappearing into the righteous curls of her hair as his other hand settled into place on her hip. She leaned into his touch, brushing her lips against the heel of his hand as she watched the war of emotions flicker across his eyes.

“No matter what happens, no matter how things look, I need you to trust your instincts about me… I need you to trust in me,” he implored roughly, the deep silk of his voice long gone. “Promise me you’ll hold on to everything else despite what your head or anyone else may tell you after tonight.” 

She nodded her head emphatically, the motion cut off as he wrapped the hand at her hip around her back and crushed her to his chest in a fierce hug, his lips pressing into the crown of her head as his fingers tangled further into her hair. 

They stood in the center of his office clinging to each other, listening to the other’s heartbeat and breathing in their scent for the final time, reluctantly pulling apart as the clocktower began to chime the new hour. Professor Snape stepped away from her, a cold mask falling across his face, washing away every trace of emotion that had been there just a moment ago as he stuffed the wayward shirt into his bag, the sound of it snapping closed echoing around them as it tore through her heart. She silently followed him out of his office and down the stairs, her fingers taking a tight hold on the wrist carrying his bag, refusing to release him and the possibilities of their future till the last minute.

At the base of the stairs, he began flicking his wand at the windows and doorway to the classroom, ripples of magic falling over every way in or out of the room.

“There is a more than likely chance Greyback will be among them tonight. Even without a full moon, it will not be safe for you outside of this classroom if he is roaming the corridors. You need to stay in here. _I_ need you to stay in here,” he ordered. “Once I leave the grounds, the wards will fall and you’ll be released from the room.”

Hermione opened her mouth to object but his hand came up, pausing her words before they could even be voiced. 

“Do not fight me on this Hermione, I can’t do this without knowing you’ll be safe.”

She closed her mouth, reluctantly agreeing to follow his direction, knowing that he would be incapable of doing whatever Dumbledore had asked of him if he was worried about her instead. He nodded his approval, his eyes tracing over the features of her face and down the length of her body, before striding from the room.

“Please be careful… Severus,” she whispered, knowing it would be the last time she would be able to refer to him so personally.

Her words made him freeze mid-step, his perfect posture collapsing as he dropped his duffle and turned back for her. His long legs quickly ate up the distance between them, his calloused palms cupping each side of her face as he yanked her up from where she had begun to lean against his classroom desk for support. Hermione brought her hands up to encircle his wrists and anchor him to her, a moment before his full lips crashed upon hers in a desperate kiss.

His tongue licked at the seam of her mouth, forcing it open for him to claim. A sharp moan left her mouth and was swallowed by his as the normally sharp and barbed muscle carefully massaged her own. She melted further into his hold as he ran the tip along the grooves of the roof of her mouth. His hold on her tightened, bringing her pliant body closer to his as his touch possessed her one final time. All too soon, he was easing out of their frenzied kiss, his lips softly brushing against hers in parting, lingering with the barest of touch for a second longer.

Severus curled his back to rest his forehead against hers as he beseeched, “I told you to never say it out loud, that it makes it all too real, but I need to hear it just once… If I have to do this, I need to hear it.”

Hermione pressed her lips roughly against his one more time, forcing him to remember her and the words she had been longing to tell him.

“I love you, Severus.”

His eyes squeezed shut as if he were in pain just before he gave her another bruising kiss. 

Just as quickly as he had seized her, he released his hold on her, making her stumble back into the desk from the loss of his support. His face was expressionless once more as he straightened up to his full height and turned away from her, his robes lashing out behind him to fall into a gentle ripple as they rode the air created by his harsh steps. Without looking back, he grabbed his bag and headed for the door only to be intercepted by Professor Flitwick racing into the room, shouting about Death Eaters being loose in the castle, Luna hot on his heels, trying to announce his presence to the unsuspecting couple, before he could see them.

Severus’s jaw was set tight as he jabbed his wand in the direction of the other professor, knocking him unconscious. 

“Do _not_ leave this room,” he said coldly, before walking out and slamming the classroom door shut behind him, the final layer of wards raining down along the wood grain as they settled into place. 

Later as they were all gathered around Bill’s bed in the hospital wing, Harry was trying to place the events of the night into order, sorting through the facts of what had happened.

“So if Ron was watching the Room of Requirement with Ginny and Neville, were you-?”

“Outside of Sev- Snape’s classroom with Luna, yes,” Hermione answered, her legs trembling as she fought to remain upright, Harry’s words mocking her inside her head.

_Snape killed Dumbledore… Snape killed Dumbledore… Snape killed Dumbledore…._

“We waited for him in the alcove just outside the door for ages but it was quiet the whole time….” She continued giving a pleading look to Luna, asking her to keep her secret from the others. “It was after midnight when Professor Flitwick came sprinting down the corridor shouting about Death Eaters in the castle. He burst into the classroom and a moment later Sev- Snape,” she stressed, while silently chastising herself for nearly slipping twice, “raced out, telling us to stay with Professor Flitwick, that it wasn’t safe for us out there… Oh my God… How could I not have seen it…?” She asked, trailing off and giving in to her tears as she crumpled onto the cold, unforgiving floor of the hospital wing. 

_This was what he had to do… What Dumbledore asked,_ demanded _, of him. How did I not put it together?_

“It’s not your fault, Hermione,” Lupin said firmly, a hand reaching down to grasp her shoulder. “Had you followed him he most likely would have killed you.”

At his words Hermione yanked away from her former professor’s touch, her teeth sinking into her tongue till she drew blood as she fought back the burning urge to defend Severus.

They needed to think the worst of him, to believe the worst of him, so that Harry would have enough time to hunt down the Horcruxes and be ready to face off against Voldemort. Though it made her heart constrict she knew she would have to become convincing in her hatred for him as well, that if she gave even the smallest voice to what she knew to be the truth that it could ruin the entire plan he had set into motion tonight, making the blood that now dripped from his hands for naught.

For now though, she could cry and she could be angry. For the rest of the night, she could give voice to her rage and devastation, allow her tears to freely flow, and they would all believe it to be in reaction to Dumbledore having been murdered. No one would know that she was mourning the man she loved who had been forced to commit such a horrible crime, to keep himself safely embedded within Voldemort’s ranks. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are sections of speech taken from canon and naturally, they are not mine but belong to JKR because Snape would have had a much happier ending if I had been writing canon lol.


	2. Truth... You Gave Me Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am officially trying my hand at having a writing and posting schedule and after talking with Snapes_know_it_all, we decided Torn Afecctions will get updated every Sunday. At least that's the plan, hopefully, I can execute my part of it lol.

_May 1998_

Hermione struggled to keep up with Harry’s quick and nimble pace as they traversed the slippery, moss covered rocks that lined the boathouse, the worn treads of her trainers working against her as she tried to maintain traction. Reaching the wooden planks of the dock, she dropped to her hands and knees and began to crawl, closing the gap between her and the boys. Keeping her body close to the wall, she made her way to where they were crouching beneath one of the grimy windows, squeezing herself between them to peer in. Her stomach constricted with dread and her breath was stolen from her for the umpteenth time that night, as she saw Severus speaking with Voldemort.

The diadem had still been smoking and glowing red from its lost battle with fiendfyre when she had demanded Harry open his mind to follow the link that connected him to Voldemort. All she had wanted in that adrenaline fueled moment was to find the snake so they could finally finish their hunt and allow Harry the chance to face off against a no longer invincible Tom Riddle. When he had pulled out of the link and told them that he was in the boathouse and had sent Lucius to find and bring back Severus, her racing blood froze in her veins, as she fought to close her own mind against what she didn’t want to admit might happen.

She had initially accepted that the statistical probability of them both surviving the war was slim at best. It was a hard truth to face, but she didn’t think it made her cynical to view things through a realistic perspective, however, their time on the run hunting the horcruxes began to drag on, and with it the change in her frame of mind.

First, the exhaustion had settled in. Then came the starvation and panic about their dwindling food supply. Finally, after weeks with no progress and the mounting tension, the locket had begun its work on them, whispering its insidious thoughts into their heads, amplifying their fears and jealousies, stoking the flames of their short tempers, before finally attempting to twist and break their fragile mental health. The only thing that had taken off the edge during her rotations with the cursed locket and pushed away the lingering effects, had been giving voice, even if only in her head, to her hope that she, Harry, and Ron would beat the odds and then she would finally be reunited with Severus once the war was over.

That small pinpoint of light amongst the darkness had seen her through the worst of their days on the run. It provided her with a life preserve to hold on to when Ron had left them and later when Harry had been injured in Godric’s Hollow and she had been terrified for his life. Her hope had bloomed during those long, never ending months, growing in strength till it eventually pushed out her practicality and became her new anchor. That hope and secret love for Severus had done more than keep her going. It had been her tether to sanity while she writhed in pain on the floor of the Malfoys’ drawing room, suffering the unending bouts of torture that had relentlessly shot out of Bellatrix’s wand. Even when the deranged witch had pinned her to the cold floor and mutilated her, that hope kept her from giving up though she had been on the edge of the pain’s siren call to give in so she would no longer feel. And after it all, it had provided her with the comfort she desperately needed while healing but no one had been able to adequately deliver given their own physically and mentally overtaxed selves. 

The thing about hope though, is it can save a person’s mind just as easily as it can destroy it when it gets ripped away.

Looking in on Severus and seeing his fear break through his normally impenetrable mask, her hope shattered and with it her heart and mind. She crouched before the window frozen in her matching fear, as she realized that the man she loved and hadn’t seen in nearly a year, was about to die right before her eyes. 

Hermione watched in horror as Voldemort raised his wand and sliced it through the air, her heart stopping for a brief moment when nothing happened, her damnable hope trying to seep back in and convince her that Severus would be alright. Only as she began to let out a sigh of relief did she understand what was actually happening. Nagini’s bubble of protection rolled through the air, coming to a stop in front of Severus, opening up and capturing him inside with her, before he could do little more than yell.

As he screamed out under the attack, Hermione felt a hand clamp over her own opened mouth, muffling the scream that was tearing through her as she saw the snake savagely rip apart his throat before a hard body knocked her to the ground and pinned her struggling form against the rough planks of wood blocking her view of the gruesome scene. She thrashed against Ron’s bodyweight as he kept her restrained between him and the dock, forcing her to stay silent so she wouldn’t give their position away. His hand quickly began to lose its hold over her mouth though, as she furiously wept into it and the splintering wood she was pressed against, her tears soaking both within seconds. Severus’s quieting screams of agony shredded her and made her soul bleed, as she was forced to remain where she was and listen to him die while she helplessly struggled to break free and save him.

“Harry,” Ron hissed from on top of her, making her twist her neck around to throw off his slippery hand and see what he was doing.

He was slowly making his way around the dock, inching closer to the opening for the boat launch, repeatedly peeking into the dirty windows checking what was happening.

“Ron, get off of me!” Hermione demanded as she started to dig her elbow into him.

The more pressure she applied, the more his grip on her began to relent and provide her with room to begin wiggling free. Her singed clothes snagged on the nails and splintered patches of wood, ripping her shirt and her skin, but she was unfeeling of anything except for her need to get to Severus before it was too late.

“Voldemort’s gone,” Harry responded, coming to his full height and quickening his pace.

Hermione wasn’t sure why now after months of hating the man, her friend felt the need to see him as he died, but she dismissed the question knowing his morbid curiosity would provide her the chance to get to Severus. Harry’s words made Ron release the last bit of a hold he had managed to keep on her. Once he started to roll off of her, she clamored to her feet, scraping her palms as she used them to push herself up, and took off around the corner, knocking Harry out of her way.

Skidding to a halt in front of Severus, she dropped to her knees and pressed her left hand firmly against his, to help apply pressure against his ravaged neck. Sticking her stolen wand into the beaded bag she had guarded with her life over the last year, she began summoning the last of the healing kit he had brewed for her in their final two weeks together, while he had awaited the Ministry take over that would result in his cleared name.

“Severus, please hold on,” she pleaded beside his ear, as she began to liberally pour the remains of her dittany and murtlap essence into his open neck, stuffing gauze soaked in both into his wounds to further help stem the flow of his freely spilling blood.

Severus struggled to raise his hand, dropping it heavily onto her hip as she worked, his fingers giving a feeble squeeze as he tried to speak around the blood that was spilling out of his mouth.

“No, you can’t talk, it’ll make it worse,” she instructed through her tears, as she ripped away the already soaked bandages she had been applying to try again. “You’re just going to have to live so you can tell me after, okay?”

Pulling back from him to pour more blood replenisher down his throat, she saw silvery streaks begin to flow from his eyes, ears, and mouth, intermingling with his blood. His head lolled to the side where Harry stood frozen as he choked on his own blood struggling to speak.

“Take… them… Take… them…”

Hermione flicked her wand at the pile of empty vials, scrubbing them clean, and chucked them at Harry as she yelled, “Don’t just stand there! They’re his memories, collect them!”

The hand that had been at his neck in a weak attempt to help, flopped against her wrist trying to get her to stop her work on him. Hermione tried to brush aside his hand so that she could continue her work on him, refusing to accept this was how it would end between them.

Remembering that the hardest part for the healers when working on Mr. Weasley two and a half years ago had been keeping the wound from opening up, she took the flaps of skin at his neck and forced them back together. Pinching the tattered pieces of tissue closed, she went to conjure a sewing needle and a spool of thread to try her hand at muggle stitches and see if it could be of aid to her.

She felt the faint press of his fingers on the inside of her wrist, drawing her attention away from his neck as he whispered, “Look… at… me…”

“No!” She yelled, refusing to help him turn his head back to her so she could be the last thing he saw. “Don’t you _dare_ give up!”

The hand that held her wrist dropped with a thump, onto the grimy floors, while the one that held her hip in an already weak grasp, slackened. Physically feeling the life drain from him, Hermione released his neck and tossed her wand aside, in favor of grabbing his face with her bloody hands to turn him back to her.

“Don’t leave me,” she quietly begged. “You _can’t_ leave me.”

It was then as she stared into his coal colored eyes, trying to memorize every feature of his face that she felt a soft push against her mind.

_I never… said it… back… but I do… I love you… Hermione… I only regret… not… having more… time… with… you…_ He thought, before his presence vanished from inside her head, making her feel more empty than ever before.

Hermione screamed as the hand at her hip, slipped from her to land with a deafening thud on the floor. She repeatedly patted her hand against his cheek trying to get him to give her any sign that he was still in there, her hits increasing in strength and growing into slaps as she grew angry with their circumstances before she began to bang her fists into his chest.

Hard arms once more wrapped around her as they dragged her back from Severus. She fought against the hold, throwing her head back into whichever of the boys held her, her arms and legs going wild as she kicked and flailed trying to break free. She shoved and twisted against the caging arms, wringing herself free as she dove back for Severus, only for a stronger hold to wrap around her, this one lifting her feet off of the ground as they wrenched her away from the man she loved.

“PLEASE! I CAN SAVE HIM!” She screamed out, beating against any part of her captor’s body she could reach.

Harry’s blurry face appeared before her as he took her chin in his hand to firmly still her jerking head.

“You did everything you could Hermione, but he’s gone!” Harry snapped. “Snape is _dead_!”

His harsh words penetrated the agonizing haze Hermione found herself in as they burrowed their way into her and began to mock her just as they did a year ago.

_Snape is dead… Snape is dead… Snape is dead…_

She manically nodded her head as she reluctantly accepted the truth and pushed down her shattered heart to be dealt with after they ended the battle that was raging on across the grounds of Hogwarts. They needed to kill the snake and Harry needed to kill Voldemort. She couldn’t allow her grief to get in the way of the bigger picture otherwise everything Severus had done and his death would mean nothing and she refused to let his sacrifice be in vain.

_I can do this,_ she thought, trying to boost herself up. _If Severus was able to survive this last year of the war alone, I can survive the final hours of it with my friends by my side. I’ll mourn for him after I help secure the world he was fighting for._

Hermione relaxed as much as she could in Ron’s hold, prompting him to tentatively begin to release her.

“You good, Hermione?” He asked, his arms filled with coiled tension as he waited to see what she would do.

“I’m good,” she reassured, as Harry pressed her dropped wand and bag back into her hand. “Thank you.”

He gave a curt nod as he turned to begin leading them out of the boathouse and back up to where the battle raged on, only for their slight progress to get halted by the cold, eerie voice of Voldemort echoing across the grounds.

“You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery.

“Yet you have sustained heavy losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a loss and a waste.

“Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat immediately.”

In the distance she could see the entrance courtyard and the black smoke that was the signature of Death Eaters disapparating, shooting into the sky as they readily complied with their leader’s orders.

“You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.

“I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, the battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, and I shall find you, and I shall punish every last man, woman, and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour…” he finished, his voice trailing off in a haunting, bone chilling echo.

“Don’t even think about it!” Ron ordered, jerking Harry around to face him, his cornflower blue eyes angry as he dared their best friend to challenge him.

Taking a deep breath to further strengthen her resolve, Hermione said, “Let’s just make it back to the castle. We need to regroup and come up with a plan because we still need to get that snake and I don’t think we can do it without help. Plus Sev- Professor Snape,” she quickly corrected, “used his final moments to give you those memories Harry. You need to view them before we do anything else.”

Seeing neither of the boys make a move to back down from their standoff, she fell back into her role as the bossy, de facto leader, and grabbed them both by the shoulder of their overworn, singed, and filthy shirts, and began to drag them with her up to the castle. Pushing them forward, she took one last look at Severus over her shoulder, silently promising him that as soon as they ended things, she would come back for his body and make sure he was buried and given full honors for his role in securing peace for their world.

Closing her eyes against the pain that was trying to breach the weak wall she built around it, she faced forward and took off up the hill to take her unfaltering place beside Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I took things from canon, Voldemort's speech, they are of course not mine but JKR. Also for how I envisioned Hermione watching Snape’s death, I went with movie canon feeling it provided a better setting.


	3. Dare... To Die

_May 1978_

The sounds of heavy snores, unintelligible mutters, and rustling bedsheets traveled out from behind the heavy drapes that were drawn around the ornately carved four poster beds, intermittently breaking up the otherwise silent Slytherin dormitory that housed five of the seventh year boys. In a bed directly across from the door, Severus Snape sat cross legged, staring fixedly at the silver threaded design woven into the light blocking drapes, playing out the drum pattern to _Walk This Way_ , on his exposed knees. For nearly seven years, he had slept within the closed curtains, studying the swirling star embroidery that hid the silhouettes of magical creatures throughout when he couldn’t sleep or he needed to quiet his mind so that he could think more objectively. Finishing the private concert his hands had been performing, he began pulling at a frayed black thread from where his jeans had split due to him over wearing them and subsequently over washing them.

Earlier in the week, Black had begun dangling the bait of revealing what they had managed to keep secret for so many years. The temptation had instantly presented itself and had only grown as the days crept by, but Severus had been resolute in his decision to let it pass, assuming it was a poorly concealed attempt at drawing him out for one final midnight duel before they left school for good. However as the days went by the temptation of finally having answers grew and at nearly two o’clock in the morning, it was becoming too much to ignore.

All night his mind had been cycling through all the clues and odd behaviors that the four self named Marauders had exhibited over the years. They had an uncanny ability to find him when he was alone or among those that would turn a blind eye if a duel broke out. It had been unnerving the way they seemed to appear from thin air and disappear just as quickly. He had grown obsessed with figuring out how they managed to ambush him at nearly every turn and what exactly it was they were hiding when they would go traipsing about the school grounds in the middle of the night.

Cursing Black and his proverbial carrot, and his own weak resolve for good measure, Severus uncrossed his legs and scooted to the edge of his bed. Leaning forward, he grabbed his boots and stuffed his feet in, yanking the laces up over his jeans to knot them into place. Straightening the stretched out collar of his faded t-shirt, he tucked his wand into his front pocket, pulled his jacket from the hook that held his school bag and robes, and silently slipped from the shared room.

Taking the stairs two at a time, he quickly made his way up through the seven floors of dormitories, surpassing the turnoff for the common room, to arrive at the landing that was the entrance and exit of the Slytherin dungeons. Turning the pane of stained glass, he crossed the threshold and continued to trek his way up from the watery depths to the main floor of the castle. Taking care with his steps, he glided soundlessly across the stone floors, making his way to the Entrance Hall and out of the tall, heavy doors in record time.

The full moon was high in the inky night sky, making it difficult for Severus to keep in the shadows as he walked through the courtyard and made his way down the sloping grounds towards the Whomping Willow. Black had repeatedly reminded him that he would be waiting there till a quarter after two if he had changed his mind and wanted to finally have answers.

He approached the edge of the hill that looked over the aggressive tree, the haunting call of a wolf coming from the distance, making the fine hairs at the base of his neck rise as his body readied a shot of adrenaline to pump into his veins should he need it. Removing a hand that was jammed into the leather pocket of his jacket, he wrapped his fingers around the long ebony length of his wand and extracted it from his jean pocket.

Another howl echoed across the grounds pulling his attention to the right and the small village of Hogsmeade in the distance. Distracted by the eerie and ominous sounds he was caught unawares when a hand clapped down on his shoulder. Whirling on his would-be assailant, he jammed the point of his wand just below their jaw, his hand steady in spite of the adrenaline shot his body had released.

“Whoa relax Snape, you’re among friends here,” Black said, raising his hands up with a smile that to anyone else would probably have been reassuring.

Severus narrowed his eyes at Black, a sneer settling into place.

“We have never been friends,” he responded, in a monotonous voice, digging the wand point in further to drive the point home.

“You wound me,” Black exclaimed, slapping a hand over his heart.

Scoffing, Severus rolled his eyes at the theatrics. He lowered his wand electing to put seven years of bad blood on the back burner, not wanting to instigate anything without knowing where the other three Marauders were no doubt laying in wait.

“Cut the shite Black and tell me why I’m here.”

All pretense slowly faded away from Black’s face, a wicked and manic gleam taking over his eyes as he stepped closer to Severus.

“You’re here Snape, because your own curiosity has gotten the better of your rationale,” he taunted. “Lucky for you, I meant every word I said the other day. Seven years we’ve been attending Hogwarts and you are the _only_ one who has ever noticed that not everything is as it seems. NEWTs start the week after next and will last for ten days, then we have only one more week before graduation. Tonight is the last opportunity you’ll ever have to find out what we’ve been up to. Tempting isn’t it?” Black goaded, turning away from him, to begin strutting down the hill without a backwards glance.

Severus’s lip curled up at the indication that he was supposed to follow dutifully along like an eager to please stray, but again his curiosity won out over his pride, forcing his feet forward without a trace of reluctance.

He watched as a stick was levitated and directed towards the trunk of the tree, hovering low in the grass so as not to anger the large, powerful branches that were known for swatting at the smallest of disturbances. He could faintly make out the branch connecting with a root close to the base of the tree before the charm was canceled. As though he expected Severus to share in a death wish, Black began making his way closer to the tree.

Looking back over his shoulder, he challenged, “Well are you coming? Or are you too much of a coward?”

“Fucking cunt,” he swore under his breath, knowing full well he had just been manipulated into seeing whatever it was Black was going to show him through to the end.

Hesitantly making his way closer to the tree, Severus was surprised when it didn’t automatically attack him. Not wanting to take too long and risk whatever had frozen the tree deactivating, he quickened his pace to meet Black by a particularly knotted section of the tree. When he got there, he saw the excited glint in the Marauder’s eyes as he twisted one of the protruding knots, releasing a hidden door.

Seeing the hidden passageway open up before them, made Severus concentrate on keeping his features schooled into a look of indifference. He did not want to give even the slightest hint of being impressed by the discovery the Marauders had clearly made years prior.

Black gave his shoulder a nudge as he egged him on, “Go on. It leads to the Shrieking Shack and that’s where we keep it.”

Severus ground his teeth to prevent himself from asking, what _it_ was, instead saying, “You first.”

A knowing smirk graced Black’s face as he shrugged back and said, “Worth a shot,” before gripping the frame of the secret door and swinging his body inside.

A second later the point of a wand light shone up from the tunnel to point at him before sweeping down the tunnel and into the darkness. Black repeated the motion twice more before Severus sighed and took his own grip on the frame.

_I’ve come this far_ , he thought in acquiescence, using his body weight to propel him forward through the hole.

It was a quick and filthy trip into the subterranean tunnel, the abrupt end nearly making him lose balance as he tried to stop the momentum he had gathered from the dirt made slide. Planting his feet into the packed earth, he brushed his hands over the seat of jeans trying to remove as much of the filth as possible. He did not have much in the way of clothing whether it be school uniforms or casual dress, and though the elves of Hogwarts saw to his laundry during the school year, the few things he had purchased from a charity shop on a high street in London after having another growth spurt during the summer, had become well worn and could not withstand many more washes before completely falling apart.

Pulling his hands back, he saw that they were just as filthy and reluctantly pulled out his wand. Casting a silent cleaning charm, he sent out a quick prayer that he had muted the strength of the spell enough to not further fray his clothing. Tucking the wand back into his jean pocket, he noticed the hem of his shirt had begun to unravel.

_Please just last till I can collect my first pay stub in July and I promise I will actually learn a proper mending charm._

“Now what?” He drawled with contempt.

Black wore another look of intrigue that nearly masked the mischievous undercurrent in his eyes as he said, “Now Snape, we make our way into the Shack.”

He took off with a rolling strut further into the tunnel, once more expecting Severus to follow. Slapping his hand against the low hanging archway, he ducked under it and called out, “Mind your head, it’s a low hanging ceiling until we reach the cellar.”

Looking back up the slide that dumped him beneath the Whomping Willow, Severus contemplated turning back for the castle. He had gone this long without knowing their secrets and with school coming to a final close, he was sure the information wouldn’t be of benefit to him going forward into the wizarding workforce, nor was it probably something that would gain him a stronger foothold on acceptance from the Dark Lord. However, the part of his mind that pushed him to repeatedly engage with the Marauders over the years egged him forward. With a defeated sigh, he followed Black through the tunnel, taking care to hunch his tall frame.

The path, while direct, was long and if the annoying tunes Black was whistling were anything to go by, they had been walking for just shy of ten minutes before the path began to shift to ascend from the earth. It wasn’t long after they had begun hiking upwards that Severus heard a repetitive clicking above him that drew his attention. Lifting his head up as much as he could, he tried to follow the noise and filter out Black’s increasing volume. As the sound became more agitated, Black finished off another of his songs with a long winded and high pitched noise, drowning out whatever the other noise had been.

“Ah, here we are,” Black announced.

He gripped a latch directly above his head and gave a firm tug on it. Stepping out of its way, a ladder folded down to meet them, revealing a small space with a faint flickering light that came from above.

“Alright, up we go.”

Black made a gallant show of offering Severus to climb up first by bowing to him and directing his arms to the rotted wood ladder. Raising an eyebrow at him, he crossed his arms over his chest and waited for Black to get the message.

“Ugh, for the love of Merlin, lighten up Snape,” Black groaned as he stood up. “I’ll go first but once we’re up you have to take the next set first otherwise it’ll ruin the big reveal.”

Black climbed his way up and leveraged himself through the hole with an enviable amount of ease. A moment later his hand popped back out of the hole, offering Severus help to get himself through.

_What the fuck is he playing at?_

Placing his boot on the first rung of the ladder, Severus felt the wood protest under the weight threatening to give way. Holding on to the slightly more sturdy looking rails he began to hoist himself up avoiding resting his weight on any one step for too long.

_Maybe I do have a death wish_ , he conceded, as one of the last steps cracked and splintered, before Black took ahold of his hand and yanked him up the rest of the way.

Once he was inside the dusty and cobweb filled cellar, Black gave another sharp whistle, this one accompanied by a knocking on the second ceiling door. A faint rustle and a squeak drew Severus’s attention away from Black and the answering thumps he received. Looking down he saw a rat scurry across his boot, making him kick the rodent off his person and down the ladder he had just ascended from.

Despite seven years of living in a castle and his house relegated to the watery dungeons, he had never gotten used to vile creatures. They were disgusting, disease ridden, untrustworthy things, that were only good for their tails as potion ingredients. On more than one occasion their very presence in the labs had been enough to send a shudder through his body and fill him with the urge to scrub his skin raw. Flexing his fingers against that very same reaction he turned back to Black who was slowly folding down a second ladder.

“You ready Moony?” He called up excitedly.

There was another quick thumping noise and what Severus could have sworn was a snarl. The sound was over too quickly though for him to be sure.

“This is your last chance, Snape. No going back after this. Are you sure you haven’t turned lily-livered yet?”

Sick of his jeers, Severus pushed Black aside with a scowl, and climbed the first several rungs, to unlatch the door. Reaching up through the opening, he placed his hands on the grimy floor and hoisted his weight up. He found himself in a room with a few lit candles, shredded drapes, a dirty, threadbare rug, and every window warded with boards nailed overtop as an extra precaution. Turning back to the cellar’s door he went to ask Black a question only to see the Marauder smirk at him as he slammed the hole closed, the latch locking into place on the other side.

“What the _fuck_ Black?” He yelled, pulling out his wand to begin throwing spells at the door that lacked a handle on its above ground side.

“Have fun, Snivellus,” he answered with a cruel laugh that was quickly fading.

Severus swore as he kicked a broken overturned chair across the dirty floor. He had known it was going to be a setup and still he had fallen for it. Firing off a few more spells at the hidden door for good measure, he turned his attention to the windows. Probing the wards he reluctantly admitted that they were of a top notch caliber which further ground the salt into the open wound that was his pride. Assuming there had to be more than one way in and out, he left what he could only guess to have been a living room before the Shack fell to shambles.

When he entered the dingy entrance corridor was when he heard the clicking sound again and what he could say without a doubt was most definitely a low, growling snarl. Being careful to not make any sudden movements, he slowly lit his wand point and began to raise it in the direction of the noise. A large shadow began to stretch across the floor towards him, its shape alone making his entire body seize up before he even laid eyes on the creature that made it.

Keeping perfectly still, Severus ran through the facts he had unknowingly acquired and pieced them all together, hoping the conclusion was different from what he feared. The Marauders’ nightly traipsing across the castle grounds only happened two nights out of every month, three tops, and each time it was always Potter, Black, and Pettigrew, Lupin always seemingly absent. Black had said this was the last time Severus would be able to see for himself before they all graduated in a few weeks and had also said the Shrieking Shack was where they kept _it_. With the full moon shining brightly in the night sky, the howling he had heard earlier, the clicking and thumping noises, and the snarling shadow he was now facing off against, Severus was positive the _it_ that Black had referred to was a werewolf and most probably Remus Lupin, one-fourth of the hell raising Marauders.

Removing his other hand from his pocket and keeping his wand trained towards the floor, Severus began to speak in a low, calming tone, “Lupin, I’m going to slowly back up now. Surely someone will be here to collect you in a few hours. Until then let’s just keep away from each other. I’ll go back into the living room and you can - FUCK!”

The growling and snarling Lupin shot forth from his end of the corridor, charging headfirst for Severus. Taking several hurried steps back, he made a risky decision and turned to run so he could move faster, despite presenting his back to the beast. Sprinting for the living room, he blindly sent stunners and tripping jinxes over his shoulder, trying to recall any wards that could provide enough strength to keep a barrier erected between him and the rabid werewolf.

Not paying attention to where he was going, Severus tripped over the chair he had kicked upon entering the living room. His body flung forward, crashing to the floor as he skidded several feet. Scrambling to get up, he felt the weight of a heavy paw land on his back, keeping him pinned to the dirty floor. Ropes of drool began to drip onto the back of his neck, as Lupin’s hot breath panted across the exposed skin.

His heart was racing and his palms were sweaty as he tried in vain to calm his racing mind so that he could think clearly. As the wolf’s rough tongue licked the back of his neck, Severus’s fight or flight instinct broke through the panic that had held him frozen.

Throwing his head back, his skull collided with the muzzle of the beast, making stars explode behind his eyes. Pushing past it, he quickly lifted a booted foot and kicked at the spine of the wolf while he was distracted shaking his head clear of the equally blinding pain.

The distraction worked long enough for Severus to clamor to his feet, reaching for his wand that had rolled away from him when he fell. Starting to run again, he made it only a few feet before Lupin regained his senses as well.

The werewolf ate up the short distance with less than three steps before leaping through the air for him.

On a half second of warning, he threw himself to the side, landing just out of biting reach of the wolf’s snapping jaw.

Severus began scrambling back on his butt, his hands scooting him away as he tried to outpace the now prowling wolf. His back hit a wall making him take his eyes off of the yellow irises that watched him as he gaged his surroundings or lack thereof. The wolf had effectively backed him into a corner with no escape.

In a useless attempt, he began trying to cast more stunners to buy himself even a second of an advantage. Each shock of magic bounced harmlessly off of the ash colored pelt of Lupin, working to only push him from wanting to make a pack to wanting to kill.

Rearing his leg back, Severus prepared to kick at the wolf again, hoping to throw enough force into it to knock him out of the way. As the heel of his boot neared contact with the chest of Lupin, the werewolf batted the limb away, his heavy paw pinning it to the floor with a snap of the bone.

Severus screamed out at the pain and fought the urge to lunge forward for the broken limb not wanting to get his throat any closer to the foaming jaw of the wolf.

“MOONY!” Potter roared from the hole in the floor.

Severus’s head snapped up with the werewolf’s as they both looked to where Potter’s messy head poked out of the cellar door.

The wolf snarled at his friend as he hoisted himself up and sat at the edge of the opening, his framed eyes staring down the murderous yellow of his friend. With a flick of his wand, a metal bucket flew up from below, dumping out a trail of raw meat away from Severus and the cellar.

Lupin glanced between the offering and Severus only once before losing traction on the floor as he skidded for the still bloody catch.

With the werewolf’s back turned, Potter raced over to Severus, and ducked his head under his arm, helping to leverage him off the floor.

“Quickly,” he hissed, as Severus limped as best he could. “It won’t last him long.”

Potter half dragged him towards the opening keeping a close watch as Lupin ate through the meat and licked up the remnants from the floor.

“Almost there…”

The sound of Lupin sniffing for more was deafening in the quiet room as they tried to make their way as stealthily as possible to the exit.

Potter began to lower him back to the ground as the sound of sniffing stopped and the room grew tense. Both boys looked at each other with fear in their eyes as they slowly turned to see Lupin eyeing them once again, his drool leaking onto the floor.

“Fuck!” Potter yelled, dropping into the hole.

A second later his hands came back out and hooked under Severus’s arms as he hurriedly dragged him back to fall through the opening.

Just as Potter was yanking him through to safety, Lupin leapt through the air, his body landing over Severus’s legs, caging him in. Before he could even attempt to block the large paw that was coming for him, Severus felt the sharp sting of claws sinking into his chest just below his collarbone.

Screaming out as his flesh and muscle were torn, he could barely hear Potter warn him before he gave a sharp pull on his body. Lupin’s paw was unrelenting, holding on till the last second, his claws tearing diagonally down his chest and torso, ribboning everything it came into contact with, blood rapidly blooming across his body and spreading out to cover both Potter and the floor.

With another savage yank to force the werewolf to release his hold on Severus, Potter pulled him through to safety, the both of them falling off the ladder and landing in a heap on the cellar floor.

“Snape! Snape, can you hear me? SNAPE!” Potter yelled.

Try as he might though, Severus was unable to answer him, as everything faded to black before becoming a blinding white.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Walk This Way _by Areosmith__


	4. Truth... We Were Never Really Friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life went and did Life things and the schedule that I had finally started to thrive under - shocker if you read SCTT and see the random times my updates came in at lol - had to be changed. I'll be back with updates within in a week or two after I get ahead and adjust to the changes around here. 
> 
> Anyways, thank you all for reading, commenting, following, and leaving kudos. I treasure them all. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy Chapter Four, and I will see you all soon
> 
> XOXO

_May 1998_

Severus struggled to maintain his hold on Hermione’s wrist as he pressed his fingers into her pulse point to draw her attention away from his neck.

“Look… at… me…” he whispered around the blood that had pooled in his mouth.

“No!” She yelled at him, increasing the pressure of her hand against his open wound. “Don’t you _dare_ give up!”

His vision had begun to cloud over with dark spots, the roaring sound of his blood pouring out of his body had gone near silent, and where he held onto Hermione, he was quickly losing his grip. He desperately wanted to look at her one last time but his capacity to speak had finally given out. As his eyes began to flutter closed he resigned himself to the fact that the universe wasn’t going to pass up its last chance to kick him while he was down.

There had been a time in his life when he would have given anything for the original owner of the emerald green eyes that were watching him die to be fixated upon him with the same intensity that was given off now. He had always thought that when he died he would be grateful for it so that he could finally see _her_ again. In an ironic twist he hadn’t seen coming, those luminescent green eyes were not the last thing he wanted to fill his mind before he took his last breath. In fact, the very thing he wanted to have one last glimpse of was the witch who was currently trying to mend his neck and was stubbornly refusing his plea.

A loud thump forced his eyes back open as he became aware of having lost his hold on her wrist. The fingers that held her hip were beginning to relax despite his commands for them to tighten as he tried once more to get her to look at him. He could feel the life draining from him and try as he might, it was becoming too hard to remain awake with Death hovering so close.

Severus began to allow his eyes to close knowing that Hermione’s efforts to save him were futile. He had lost far too much blood to survive without at least half a dozen vials of blood replenisher, which were all but useless given the gaping wound at his neck preventing anything from circulating through his system. And while the Brightest Witch of Her Age was personally attending to him, she was no match for the dark magic that had created Nagini and her venomous bite that prevented the closing of her punctures or tears for too long. She needed another dose of the custom antivenin to help her but there had only been enough for one.

The harrowing noises of war and the desperate cries of his witch began to fade around him as his body became more limp. He was faintly aware of his fingers slipping further down her body before her small, blood soaked hands were taking hold of his cheeks. The wet warmth was a startling shock against the cold that had seeped into him, forcing his eyes back open. She turned his face back to her own, shifting her head down so that his vision was filled with the warm caramel color of her eyes. For an all too brief period of time in his life, those eyes had happily greeted him every morning and warmed with love for him every night. It was in those eyes that he had learned to hope again and within her heart that he had finally been loved.

“Don’t leave me,” she quietly begged. “You _can’t_ leave me.”

_Hermione, if there was another way I wouldn’t_ , he thought.

His mind sparked as he was silently speaking to her. Fighting to keep his eyes locked with her unwavering gaze, he channeled every bit of magic that was left and what little energy he still possessed into reaching out for her mind. The moment he felt her, he pushed in without finesse trying to breach her thoughts before it was too late.

_I never… said it… back… but I do… I love you… Hermione… I only regret… not… having more… time… with… you…_ Severus thought before he felt himself unwillingly fall out of her mind and into a blindingly white void of space.

He squinted against the brightness, the light so sharp it managed to still penetrate his retinas through his eyelids. The points of light that had stabbed through, began to ebb allowing him to relax his muscles and hesitantly crack an eye back open. Finding that either the brightness had lessened or his pupils had contracted enough to accommodate the assault on his senses, he opened his eyes the rest of the way, curious as to where he now found himself.

Turning in a circle, Severus took in what appeared to be a pristine replica of the Great Hall. There were no cracks or divots in the stone floors from rogue bursts of magic. The long tables and benches lacked their scars and worn edges that had come from the thousands of students who had sat there for their meals or hurriedly copied assignments before dashing off to class. The ceiling was surprisingly unenchanted, exposing the decorative, structural beams for the first time in Severus’s memory, and the high arched windows were clear of their weathered distressing that had slowly built over the school’s one thousand year history. Down the main aisle that separated the Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables was the dais and head table, the headmaster’s gold trimmed chair gleaming against the pure light. And in its spot in the center of it all, was the three legged stool that every first year in the history of Hogwarts had taken a seat upon waiting for the hat’s determination of their house and thus the doors that would open for them upon their commencement in seven years.

“What the hell is this place?” Severus questioned.

“I had thought that to be rather obvious, Sev.”

The unmistakable, silvery voice of Lily Potter made him tense up as he closed his eyes and fought the sneer that was rooting itself into place on his face.

“Well, since you’re here it clearly must be hell,” he said derisively.

“Severus!” She admonished in much the same way that had always brought him to heel as a boy.

He whirled on her, his voluminous robes fanning out around him, making him realize not for the first time that their effect added to the bat and vampire monikers he had gained over his tenure as a professor.

“Don’t even try that shite with me, Evans!” He bit, the sensuous lilt of his natural voice replaced with the barbed acid he used to command his classroom. “You refused to so much as look at me during our last two years of school. It took fifteen years after your death for me to finally move on from you. Then when I _finally_ gained a modicum of happiness and found someone who loved me in return, I got killed protecting your ungrateful son. And now that I’m dead, you finally want to give me the fucking time of day!”

The soft, indulgent smile that graced her face made Severus all the angrier. The choices that led to him being Marked may have been all his own, and he had never allowed himself to place the blame for his careless, youthful indiscretions anywhere but upon his own shoulders. As his grief had faded though, he often wondered how things would have gone for him had his only friend been willing to forgive him as easily as she had forgiven Potter and Black. At sixteen it had been a hard truth to swallow that the only person to have ever shown him kindness and love, even if he had wanted more than the platonic offering she gave, had found him to be just as irredeemable, unforgivable, and unlovable as everyone else in his life. The only place he had left to turn to after losing her had been his housemates and within the first month after graduation, they had all stood together as brothers awaiting their Mark. Until the night he had to kill Albus and any future he may have had, betraying his brothers and Lord for those who had never seen him had been the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.

“Oh, Hermione! She is such a lovely girl, James and I both see so much of me at that age in her. I had hoped something would develop between her and Harry but at least they’ve developed such a close friendship over the years. Hopefully, there can still be a chance for something to grow from that.”

Lily’s words made Severus see red. He advanced on her, his purposeful stride closing the gap between them in a handful of steps, only drawing to a stop when he was close enough that his tall frame could impose upon her.

“She is _nothing_ like you,” he emphasized, his voice hard and cold. “Do not think to flatter yourself by assuming you’re the measuring stick and she, the one that is in need of sizing. The mere idea is laughable.” Stepping back from her space he added, “Now tell me where I am, so you can get the fuck out of my afterlife.”

Her face colored with a laughable amount of shock as her eyebrows tried to join her hairline and her jaw reached for her collarbone.

“Oh my God, you really do love her!” She shouted incredulously. “I mean I figured you had some fascination or mild affection for her but I never thought…”

“Never thought what?” He dared.

“That you had it in you,” she confessed, her guilt and shame visibly heating her face.

“There’s a difference between being starved for love and knowing how to love Evans,” he replied flatly. “Now tell me whatever it is I need to know about being dead and leave me be.”

“Oh right,” she said absently. “That’s why I’m here and honestly the offer makes so much more sense now. For the afterlife of us, James nor Sirius could figure out why you would be offered such a miraculous gift but now it makes sense.”

Severus drew his robes around himself as he crossed his arms and glared at her, impatiently waiting for her to get back on course, so that she could continue. After all, he was dead, how much more of his life was he expected to give to Evans? He had already sacrificed everything for her and her child over the last near twenty years. Was it ever going to be enough? Would the debt ever get paid?

Lily’s emerald eyes strengthened in their resolve as she looked up to meet his dark stare.

“Death wishes to offer you a second chance in place of your afterlife,” she explained. “For everything you have done-”

Her words were cut off as the sound of yelling filled the room. Her auburn hair whipped her face as she hastily turned around to see what was happening behind her. Down by the doors leading in and out of the Great Hall, a third presence began to materialize, their shredded clothes making Severus look down at himself for the first time to see the state he was in. His robes were still soaked in his blood, a trail marking where he had been from where it dripped off of him. Bringing his fingers up to his neck, he briefly touched the ravaged part before yanking his hand back, not wanting to think any further on what had happened to him just before he arrived in his own personal hell.

Watching over Lily’s head, Severus saw the third person become fully corporeal, the urgent yelling ceasing as the person on the floor began to move. A loud groan echoed in the cavernous hall as they gripped their abdomen, rolling to their side and pushing up to sitting with their free hand. Their blood matted hair fell forward to curtain their face from view as they examined their injuries, but their countenance and the fresh open wounds bisecting their chest were things Severus was all too familiar with, having seen them in the mirror every day.

“That’s…”

“You,” Lily supplied, taking a step towards Severus’s younger self.

“Fucking Marauders!” Both the older and younger Severus swore.

His eighteen year old self’s head shot up at the echo of his statement, the black, untrusting depths of his eyes, pinning Severus with a hard stare.

“Well since we are all finally here, let’s get started shall we?” Lily announced, clapping her hands together as she took a seat at one of the long tables.

“Lily?” His younger self asked in awe. “What are you doing here?”

“Come take a seat, Sev. I’ll explain everything,” she instructed with a glowing smile as she patted the spot next to her on the bench.

Severus sneered as he watched himself eagerly scramble to stand up and comply with her directive. After twenty years he had forgotten how pathetic and desperate he had been in seeking her attention and approval. He was embarrassed on behalf of his past self as he turned away and took his place at the table opposite her.

Seeing the boy he had been moon over Lily, Severus wondered just when he had become too proud and hardened to openly express his love. In the short months, he had been gifted with Hermione’s presence, she had never held his inability to express himself against him or demanded more than he was capable of and willing to give to her. She had taken every flaw and shortcoming in graceful strides, never allowing it to harden her heart against him. If anything, the more he struggled with it, the more she foisted her love and affection upon him, hoping to one day be able to easily draw it out of him.

Witnessing how he used to wear his heart on his sleeve, he couldn’t help but feel a second regret bloom within him. Somewhere along the way, he had robbed himself, and her, of being able to love with such a carefree manner. The entire time he had with her had been spent second guessing himself and keeping one foot planted out the door so that he could run before she inevitably changed her mind about him.

The unresolved anger he had with Lily, and the newfound envy he had of his eighteen year old self, began to break through the surface causing him to lash out at himself.

“Do you know what is going to happen when you leave this place?” He drawled.

His past self had visible difficulty turning his attention away from Lily, making him slap the table with a resounding crack of his palm.

“Severus…” She once more admonished.

The younger Severus’s eyes went wide as he examined the older for the first time since arriving in the Great Hall.

“She called you-”

“Severus yes, I am you and you are me,” he said agitatedly.

He snapped his fingers at himself as his eyes turned back to Lily who was bestowing him with a beatific smile, further inciting his anger.

“Focus,” he harshly enunciated, drawing his younger self’s eyes back to him. “Do you know what will happen when you leave here? You’ll wake up in the infirmary, with several pieces of your most vital organs having been removed from the ribboning of Lupin’s claws. Your muscles will be shredded and massive sections of your skin removed so both can be regrown since the damage was too much to stitch. And your tibia will have snapped into three segments, all culminating in several days worth of excruciating healing before you have to sit your NEWTs like nothing happened, unable to tell a soul what transpired that night because Albus Dumbledore will expel you for outing the werewolf.

“And where will Evans be through it all? Not with you, that’s for sure. She’ll be doting on a devastated Lupin who won’t acknowledge that he almost killed you and acting as though Potter shites rainbows out his arse for turning into a coward and rescuing you when he realized, nearly too late, the full ramifications of Black’s idea.”

The way his past self recoiled at the information and looked at Lily as though the wool was finally pulled from his eyes, left a satisfied smirk across his face.

Unable to stop now that he had started, even if to spare himself, he added, “Oh and twenty years later when you die again, that will be the first time she speaks to you. Only to follow it up with expressing her hope that the witch you love, the one who tended to you and stitched you up herself on several occasions, the one who just had to watch you die, will get over it and fall in love with hers and Potter’s son next.

“Do yourself a favor and let her go kid. The only thing Lily Potter will ever be able to give you is a complex lasting twenty years, where you think no one will ever love you or see you as more than a tool.

“Now, again I say, tell me what the fuck is going on Evans, and leave me to my miserable afterlife and him to his miserable future.”

The onyx eyes of his past self searched him for confirmation before looking back at Lily’s once bright emerald eyes. They both saw the shame and downcast look of her as she refused to meet the darkening glare of his younger self. Severus watched with interest as the silence grew and stretched to highlight how unlikely she was to protest anything he said. His younger version scooted down the bench putting as much space as he could between them and still remain within the loop of the coming conversation, his hair falling forward to obscure his face and the emotions that would have been an open book to anyone who looked.

“Okay…” Lily started, clearing her throat. “Umm… This isn’t going exactly as it’s supposed to I don’t think… So we’re just going to… I guess we can-”

“Out with it already!” Severus yelled.

Lily startled at his harsh tone, her widened eyes glancing to her right at his brooding rendition, who only glared back at her, silently saying she would receive no help from him.

She let out a soft defeated sound before rounding her shoulders back and drawing herself up into perfect posture.

“You both are in Limbo, the crossroads between life and death.”

“And it looks like the Great Hall? Are you sure this isn’t hell?” The younger Severus asked, making the older one snort.

“The location of Limbo varies from person to person. It presents itself as the biggest crossroads in a person’s life. My guess for the two of you would be that our Sorting Ceremony is the defining moment you associate as having been what placed you on the path you ended up traveling.

“Now Sev,” she said looking at the younger, “You are here because the night you were injured nearly killed you. You danced on the threshold of Limbo for several hours before Madam Pomfrey was finally able to drag you back. Now that Severus has lived out the course of your life, Death wants to make you both an offer.”

That easily caught both their attention as they fixed her with their equally intense eyes.

Lily looked back to the older as she continued, “For all you have sacrificed and been denied over the years because of your role in the war, you are guaranteed free entry into Elysium without facing the judgment and trials the rest of us had to. That alone is already a great offer. However, the moment you chose to follow through with your task last year and remain dedicated to the war over being with Hermione, you earned an even greater gift. A second chance in a manner of speaking.”

“What do you mean in a manner of speaking?” His younger self asked, the mistrust clear on his face.

“That’s where it gets a little complicated and unfair if you ask me.”

“We didn’t,” Severus drawled.

“Fine…” She conceded, sounding a little put out by not getting to offer her opinion. “For the sake of full disclosure, Severus you will not be able to return from where you left. Whereas Sev, you can only go back or go forward, the afterlife will not be an option for you. You both will also have to come to an agreement otherwise the natural course of life and time will continue as it did in the past and as it is meant to going forward.”

Severus gave a minute nod of his head in understanding awaiting the boy he was, to give the go ahead for her to continue. His younger self maintained a look of skepticism as he examined everything Lily had said till now looking for any hidden clues or double meanings in her words before deciding. After a moment the uncreased eyes of his youth met his own silently asking if their life was something he would want to live even with dying long before his time.

“We lose nothing by hearing her out,” he offered in answer, allowing his eyes to remain unguarded for a rare moment, so the other could see just how much their life was not one he would have wanted to live.

He sat up straighter and turned to face Lily on the bench pulling up a leg to tuck his booted foot under his thigh. His knee began an agitated bounce as he continued to think things over. His hand dropped down to still the bounce only to begin playing out the rhythm of _Don’t Fear the Reaper_ , inadvertently drawing Severus into playing out the cowbell beat as he hummed along.

“Shite,” he said, his hands gripping the lip of the table after Lily caught his eye as she glanced between the two versions.

He had worked hard to rid himself of his nervous ticks and after a handful of minutes with his teenage self, he was reverting back into his old habits.

Halting his concert at the loss of his back up, the younger Severus rubbed his hands over his thighs again, muttering, “Go ahead.”

“Excellent! So this is the offer,” Lily started, spreading her hands across the table, making several sheaves of parchment, a quill and ink, and potion vials appear. “Sev, if you both agree, you will be completely healed from the unfortunate event between you and Remus.”

“I think you mean when Black set us up to be mauled to death,” Severus corrected acidicly.

“I don’t think that was ever his intention Severus,” she retorted.

“Oh really, then what was? Because in case you haven’t noticed Lils, I’m in fucking Limbo, hovering between life and death!”

Lily scoffed at his younger self’s outburst, waving his comment off as she muttered, “Managing one of you was bad enough.”

“Always defending them,” he sneered, as Severus added, “Nice to know some things never change.”

“ _Anyways_ ,” Lily said, raising her voice to be heard over the both of them. “Sev, you will be healed before leaving Limbo. When you leave, instead of going back to 1978, you will go to 1998 where Severus came from, and get to live out his second chance at life. You will not be Marked, you will not turn spy for the Order, and you will be given the opportunity to begin your life again, armed with the knowledge that Severus holds of what became of you so that you do not muck it up. Now the catch…”

She turned her attention to Severus, a look of apology gracing her face as she went to tell him his role in the trade.

He didn’t even allow her to utter a single word before saying, “I will be de-aged and take his place in ’78 so as not to fuck up the timeline and the war that is going on.”

“How did you know that?” She asked in disbelief.

“Because that,” they both said, pointing to the orange-gold vial on the table, “is the potion for it.”

Severus looked to his younger self and gave a nod of approval for his accurate identification skills, recalling how obsessively he had studied for the beginning of his apprenticeship at that age.

“Umm… yes that is exactly right. You will be de-aged with that one, bound to your regression with this one,” she said indicating a thistle colored one, “and have your memory, along with your maturity, wiped clean of everything after he lost consciousness when you take the third one,” she explained, glancing to the last vial that had a fern colored brew inside.

“And if you two decide to forgo it, I will take you to Elysium and Sev, will have his time in Limbo removed from his mind and go back. For the most part, time is suspended here, but with that said you two need to make your choice sooner rather than later, because the longer you’re here, the harder it becomes to leave.”

Severus looked at himself, taking in the already worn and tattered clothes, the shredded strips of fabric from the attack, and the youth filled face that was absent of the fine lines and the jaded, hopeless expression that would become his companion in just a few short years. The choice was easy for him. There was no reason for him to spend another lonely existence, this time an unending one, when one of them could have the chance at getting what they had always wanted and what he nearly had with Hermione, last year.

“We’ll do it.”

“Severus, you _both_ have to agree,” Lily reminded.

He looked to his younger self and said, “You don’t want the life I lived. I’m thirty-eight and all of it but six months in ’97 has been miserable and lonely. I willingly and without complaint paid the price for the mistakes you are about to make and allowed myself to be used and manipulated to further the cause of keeping Harry Potter alive. I never had anything of my own, never got to pursue anything of my own, my entire life was ruled by Albus Dumbledore and the Dark Lord. Take the offer and _live_.”

His young self looked at Lily with a pained expression that had currents of betrayal and anger laced throughout as he rubbed his fingers over his lips.

“You gave up on me,” he whispered. “We swore we would always be friends but you couldn’t wait to throw me away like the garbage everyone else thought I was.”

“Sev, I’m so sorry. I was just a-”

“Don’t call me that and save your apologies, you don’t mean them.” He looked back to Severus and asked, “What of your witch?”

An involuntary ghost of a smile crossed his face at the mention of Hermione. Feeling Lily watch him though, he quickly smothered it not wanting to be so open in front of anyone, especially her. Taking in his surroundings though he figured they were all technically dead anyways and it could only help the eighteen year old that sat across from him in the long run.

“She’s everything we ever wanted and so much more. She loves with abandon and unconditionally. She’s a bleeding heart that is always in search of her next save all of humanity project and has never met an underdog that she doesn’t want to campaign for. She is the most forgiving and intelligent person I have ever met. She is hope personified.

“Hermione isn’t without fault though. She is as stubborn and as proud as a bloody hippogriff. She will never miss an opportunity to call you on your shite and say ‘I told you so.’ She is the most insufferable of know-it-alls to have ever walked the corridors of Hogwarts, that includes us. And for as possessive and prone to jealousy as we can be, so is she.

“And you two are going to _despise_ each other.”

“What?” His younger self asked, startled from envisioning such a witch.

“You’ll see,” he replied with a knowing smirk.

“Why are you willing to do this?”

“Before her, I didn’t care if I lived through the war so long as I accomplished my tasks and wiped my slate clean of debt before I died, that was enough. After her though… I wanted to live and have a life. That can’t happen for me now, but for you… You can have a chance at everything I missed out on. It may not be me specifically that gets that opportunity, but it is still me in a way and selfishly, I want it,” he explained.

“What if I don’t want a life with her? Or she doesn’t want one with me?”

Severus rolled his eyes at the question, knowing full well the boy would be sunk for her in a matter of months, but said, “Don’t be a prick to her and I’ll call it even.”

The teenager that sat across from him, nodded his head several times, once more rubbing his hands over his jeans before playing out his private concert while he thought.

Giving him the time he needed to come to the same conclusion that this was the best move for his life going forward, Severus gestured to the parchment and quill between him and Lily and said, “May I?”

“Of course,” she said eagerly, pushing everything closer to him. “If you want there’s an empty vial for memories too if it’ll be easier to give them to him that way.”

Taking one of them, he set it beside the parchment as he opened the inkwell thinking of what he wanted his last words to Hermione to be. Dipping the point in, he scraped off the excesses and was about to begin when he looked up through his lashes at Lily, who was watching him with a quizzical expression.

“Yes?”

“I just can’t believe it. You really do love her. I like the changes she’s brought out in you, Severus. I approve,” she said with that same smile that once upon a time turned his knees to jelly.

“Oh good, I have your approval. And here I thought I would die without having ever gotten my deepest desire,” he said dully, his lip curling in distaste as he looked back at the parchment and began to write, effectively dismissing her.

A while later as he was folding up his letter, his other self finally spoke his answer.

“We’ll do it,” he concurred with conviction.

Lily beamed at him as she clapped her hands together coming to stand up. “Perfect, we will get you squared away first, while Severus finishes up, then we will do him. I think it is a little unfair that you both don’t get to have a happy ending but this is better than nothing.”

Severus, methodically filed through his memories tuning out her inane prattle as he linked each relevant event of his life to the next to pull everything out in one long uninterrupted string. With a flick of his wand, he dropped the silvery mass into the vial and corked it. Stepping out of the bench he came around to himself and Lily and handed off the sealed letter and memories.

“The letter is for her, the vial for you,” he instructed. “You don’t have to love her in my absence. Hell, you don’t even have to like her if you don’t want to, but do not be an arsehole to her. She has gone through more in the last year than anyone should ever have to. Whether she lets on or admits it, it will have changed her irrevocably, so _try_ to not be an abrasive little shite head.

“Also, when you arrive at the boathouse, _do not leave it_. There is a war going on. She will come back for me and collect you instead when she can. Do not fuck up this chance!”

He watched himself hold onto the vial and letter with a white knuckled grip as Lily took his elbow and began to lead him up the aisle to the dais.

“Sit on the stool and I’ll place the hat on you. After that, you’ll move from here back to the living but it’ll be 1998,” she said in a soothing voice.

His younger self approached the stool, turning around to look out at the empty hall as he sat down. He was staring at the contents within his hands when Lily stepped up beside him, the hat in her hands, and bent forward to kiss his cheek.

“I really am sorry, Sev,” she said quietly, the cavernous space making her voice echo back to where Severus stood watching.

“I’m not,” the younger replied, straightening himself on the stool.

Lily’s hand shook as she hesitated a moment before placing the brown leather hat atop his head. For a short few seconds nothing happened, then all at once he faded from view and the hat dropped in a limp heap where its wearer had just been sitting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Don't Fear the Reaper _by Blue Oyster Cult__


	5. Truth... We're All Mad Here

Ron made a cradle with his hands and bent down to help lift Hermione over the body of a fallen giant that blocked the final steps to the entrance courtyard. Grabbing onto the thick flesh that covered the giant’s ribs, she pulled herself up and over to slide down his abdomen. Harry grabbed her waist as she came down, helping to steady her as her feet slammed onto the stone ground. She squeezed his biceps in thanks as she moved to his side making room for Ron to come over, the sound of his feet slapping against the ground, equal to that of an explosion in the strained calm that surrounded them.

Looking at her hands, her fingers rubbed over her palms trying to dispel the phantom feeling of Severus’s blood that was still clinging to her. Harry had cast a cleansing charm on her hands removing all evidence of her failure to save him, and yet she could still feel the warm, stickiness of his life and smell the coppery tang in her nose. Flexing her fingers against the urge to start wiping them along her jacket and jeans, she grabbed ahold of Harry’s hand lacing her fingers through his, as she leaned against him to draw strength so she could keep herself and them together till the end.

“You had no way to close the wound, Hermione. There wasn’t anything else you could have done,” Harry murmured, squeezing her hand as they began navigating the rubble.

She dragged her hand along her sternum, pulling at the chain they couldn’t see as she thought, _But there would have been if not for Godric’s Hollow…_

The sight of the courtyard and the castle nearly brought her to tears again as she took in the devastation that had been wrought from just a few hours of open battle. Smoke curled high into the barely lightening sky from several of the castle’s turrets. Complete sections of their school, their home, had been blown to pieces, the ancient stone falling and crumbling from where the damage forced it to give in after surviving for a thousand years. Shards of glass from the fallen clock tower and demolished windows crunched beneath their feet with every step. The decorative arches that surrounded the courtyard had collapsed and the trees and shrubs that hadn’t been incinerated were smoldering adding a layer of ash to the coppery smell she couldn’t get rid of.

As they got closer to the doors of the Entrance Hall, Neville could be seen directing Dean, Seamus, and a half dozen other members of the defunct Dumbledore’s Army, with authoritative ease as they collected those that were injured or had died onto gurneys to get them into the Great Hall for treatment or identification. They were all littered with abrasions, several of the boys had their wand hands bandaged up, their clothes singed and torn, and hastily healed limbs that forced them to walk with pronounced limps. Neville nodded his head at them as they headed inside, a haunted smile on his face.

The silence of the courtyard was broken as they entered the Great Hall. The muffled cries of those who had survived as they comforted each other in their losses carried throughout. A tormenting melody of agonizing moans from those that were injured with no one to tend to them intermingled with the cries. The amount of those capable of healing were stretched beyond breaking as they were forced to pick and choose who received their attentions. In the center of it all, a clearing for the dead had been made by moving the tables and benches to be stacked along the walls.

Hermione’s hold on Harry grew tighter as they passed over Lupin and Tonks who were having sheets pulled over their bodies as they approached the mourning Weasleys. Mrs. Weasley was laying over Fred as she sobbed into his shoulder, Mr. Weasley rubbing her back as he looked up at the ceiling fighting back his own tears and grief while in front of the rest of his children. All around her were people grieving for their lost loved ones, crying into their limp bodies, or straightening them out so they looked to be merely sleeping. Her steps faltered as she refused to go further, feeling her throat close up as another wave of anguish washed over, trying to send her back for Severus whose body was alone, uncared for, and covered in drying blood and filth.

“Harry… I-I-I can’t - I can’t do this,” she stuttered, biting back a sob, as she began to backpedal from the scene.

“Hermione, they need you. Don’t you see how many still need to be healed?” Ron hissed in chastisement.

“Ron, she’s in no shape to be helping anyone right now. I think she’s going into shock,” Harry explained.

“From seeing that traitor die?” He spat. “Look around you, Harry. Look at the people we have…”

Ron’s voice began to fade away as the world felt as though it was closing in around her. The Great Hall was slowly beginning to shift, transporting her back to the boathouse, Severus’s blood soaking through her clothes and staining her skin. Her heart began to race as her breathing turned shallow, her eyes searching the room for something to anchor her fracturing mind like a trapped animal.

The touch of fingers at her elbow broke her hold on reality, as she fisted her stolen wand and turned on her attacker, shoving the curved point into their neck. She could feel her magic flaring up to meet her panic as it traveled down the stubborn conduit that she had forced to her will, ready to begin launching offensive attacks.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you, Hermione,” a calming and airy voice spoke, the warm presence of the witch she couldn’t see through her fogged mind working to push the overriding fear back.

“There you are!” A mildly exasperated voice exclaimed, his dark presence joining the warm light that was soothing Hermione. “Luna, love, please come sit down. I need to clean your cuts and check you for a concussion,” the familiar, aristocratic voice said.

Hermione blinked several times, clearing her head allowing her to finally process the presence of Malfoy and Luna standing before her, his fingers slipping down her wrist till he held her hand within his own.

“Just a minute Draco, I think Hermione shouldn’t be startled anymore right now.”

His mercury colored eyes turned on her for a brief second, before looking down at the black, curved wand that belonged to his aunt. Pulling Luna behind him and palming his own wand, he coldly ordered, “Granger, lower your wand.”

“What?” She asked, following his eyes down to her still raised wand that was now shoved into his chest.

“Oh my God, Luna! I’m so sorry,” she beseeched, hurriedly dropping her arm and taking a step back from them.

Malfoy’s hard eyes stayed trained on her, his arm acting as a barrier between her and Luna as she stepped out from behind him.

“It’s okay Hermione. I know you didn’t mean it,” Luna said. “Come on Draco, Hermione and Harry have things they need to do. Maybe you can help tend to the others.”

Hermione watched Luna’s white blonde curls bounce as she turned around and skipped off to one of the benches. Malfoy kept an eye on Hermione for a brief moment longer before dutifully trailing after Luna like a specter clad in all black.

“Did you see that?” Harry asked dumbfounded.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” she replied, her suffocating trauma ebbing away under the startling revelation.

Looking around the hall, she knew she couldn’t stay there and still maintain the strength needed to keep fighting. Tucking the wand into her front pocket, she turned to Harry, drawing once more on her bossy personality for strength, ready to help him go forward.

“Let’s get to a pensieve. It’s imperative you view those memories before the battle starts again,” she said.

“Dumbledore had one in his office. What are the chances Snape kept it?” He asked.

“Considering he gave you those, I would say very good.”

Harry led them up the mostly intact Grand Staircase, deviating to the right where the gargoyle stood at his full height, his wings spread wide, blocking the spiral stairs from trespassers and the battle.

“Yellow acacias,” Hermione said, giving the stone sentry Severus’s password for her from when he was their professor without thought.

The gargoyle snapped his wings shut allowing them entry, giving her a slight inclination of his horned head in greeting.

“Even with a password, do not allow anyone up till we are done,” she instructed, patting the statue as she stepped onto the stairs.

“Hermione, how did you know that?” Harry asked, his green eyes watching her with a penetrative gaze as he stepped beside her.

She elected to ignore his question as the stairs moved them up to the office door. She rubbed her hand over her chest again, reminding herself of the fine chain that rested against her skin, hidden from view. She had to use what she wore around her neck when she did, otherwise, the war would have been lost before it had truly begun. The weight of that decision, however right it had been, was going to forever haunt her knowing what it had ultimately cost her.

They pushed the door open, to find that the office had been suspended in time. Severus had changed very little upon assuming the mantle of headmaster. The odd inventions and tinkerings of Dumbledore’s still whirled away on the desk and shelves. The room still retained its garish decor of maroon colored rugs and drapes. The well loved and lived in look was still the style of choice, a total contrast to what she knew Severus had preferred. Hermione had difficulty finding any trace of the man she lost amongst his predecessor’s things. It was a balm to her crying heart that allowed her to pretend that just maybe he was still alive and the last year hadn’t happened. At the same time, it was an added stressor further ripping her soul as she wondered if he was forever lost to her now, her memories the only indication that he had ever existed and been hers to love.

Eyeing the pensieve already on display as though Severus had known this was a possibility, Hermione pointed to it, guiding Harry along. While she had been studying the room looking for traces of Severus, he had been studying her as though waiting for the answer to reveal itself before him.

“Go on, Harry. We need to get this done. We will be trapped here if the battle resumes and you haven’t finished viewing the memories,” she instructed, walking over to the stone basin’s hidden alcove where it was floating amongst rows of shimmering memories.

Harry uncorked the vial and poured the silvery strands of mist into the mirrored liquid, images of Severus throughout his years starting to flit across the surface, as they waited to be viewed.

“Are you coming with?” Harry asked.

Hermione looked into the pensieve and seeing the young face of Harry’s mother, backed away, shaking her head. Even before he used his last bit of magic to tell her he loved her, she knew Severus did despite his inability to articulate it. Even as closed off and hesitant as he always was, it was there in his actions and the way he cared for her, and that had been enough. But being forced to see how easily and openly he had loved before the world had warped him and twisted him into the angry and jaded man she had fallen for, was too much and something she couldn’t bear without forever coloring her view of Harry’s deceased mother.

“No, I think it's best if only you go. He wouldn’t want anyone else seeing his private thoughts. Besides, someone should stay aware of the surroundings in case something happens.”

“Right, good idea,” Harry nodded in agreement. “Okay, here goes nothing.”

After he plunged his head into the liquid, Hermione walked over to the desk, sinking to the floor as she leaned against the ornately carved piece of furniture. Pulling her wand back out, she tapped it between her breasts with a mumbled, “Finite.”

Reaching into her shirt, she pulled out the delicate, goblin made, silver cable chain, that had a scrolled fleur-de-lis bale attaching it to the antique locket. It was edged with a filigree design, a ring of tiny metal pearls inside of that, and in the center a large pear shaped emerald. Opening the dainty closure, she looked inside at the left half that was an empty potion vial, running fingers over the oval shaped crystal. On the right, in an elegant scrawl, the metal was engraved with, _Dum spiro spero, And you are my breath_. Feeling her tears breech her eyelids as they began to roll down her cheeks, she snapped it closed trying to banish the memory as she dropped the long chain back down her shirt, the locket coming to rest just past her breasts as she made it disappear from sight once more.

Looking at her hands, she started to rub her fingers over her palms again in another attempt to rid herself of still feeling his blood on her. After so long on the run, she knew the cleansing charms, while effective, didn’t give one the true feeling of being cleaned and washed. Somehow the feeling of dirt and grime, or in her case Severus’s life force, still managed to cling to the skin, only to be removed with actual soap and water. Dragging her palms along the rug, she tried to use the fibers to exfoliate the feeling off of her, only for the maroon color to make her recoil.

Scrambling back from the rug, the feeling of being a trapped animal washed over her again as she tried to curl her body up and avoid touching the rug that was turning into a pool of blood before her eyes. She frantically looked about the office trying to find a place that wouldn’t trigger a further break from reality, only to see the red drapes begin to turn into waterfalls of blood that flowed into the pool where the rug had been. Clamoring onto the desk she tried to slow her breathing, the shallow pants that she was emitting making her dizzy. Severus’s screams began to fill her ears as the room started to spin, the sound of his choked breathing and gurgles layering themselves into the distressing song that was deafening her.

Hermione began rocking herself on the desk, her eyes screwed shut against her knees, as her shoulders covered her ears against the sights and sounds her mind was flooding her with.

_I can do this, I can do this, I can do this_ , she internally chanted. _I am the master of my mind. I control it, it does not control me._

_Okay, Hermione, you need to ground yourself… Just think of a category… Something, anything will do… You need to clear your mind… Come on…_

_Countries!_ She shouted within her own head.

_Zambia… Vietnam… United Arab Emirates… Turkey… Switzerland… Romania… Qatar… Portugal… The Netherlands… Morocco…_

Hermione continued to work on reciting her list of countries in descending alphabetical order, turning around at A, to go in ascending order with a list of fruits. Naming kiwi off in her head, the quieted state she had reached, was disturbed by Harry’s soothing voice as he called out for her.

Lowering her shoulder, she uncurled her body and looked up at his heartbroken face.

Sliding off the desk, she asked, “What did he need to tell you?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked at the same time, pulling her into a hug.

He smoothed the top of her hair back, before kissing it, and resting his cheek on her, his thin but strong arms, tightening around her.

“All this time and I never knew,” he murmured. “You were there in his memories.”

“What?” She startled, trying to pull back from him.

“Everything was a little jumbled in there but for the most part it followed through his history since the day he met my mother,” Harry explained, telling her nothing she didn’t already suspect. “But every so often, the memories would flicker and you would be there. You were so bright and clear… I could almost feel what he felt in each of them, what he felt for you.”

He hugged her tighter for a moment before releasing her, his emerald eyes full of apology.

“Harry, he needed everyone to believe the worst of him. He needed _you_ to believe the worst of him so he could protect the school as best he could. You needed someone to channel your anger and rage towards and Severus provided you with the perfect outlet.”

“We need to go get him. He can’t be left there, Hermione. He needs to be buried properly with everyone else. They all need to know what he’s done for everyone, what he’s done for you.”

“No!” She said emphatically. “I mean yes to everything else of course, but Harry no one can know about me and Severus.”

“Hermione, the man loved you, why wouldn’t you want that known?”

“Because,” she started, her voice giving off a faint crack from emotion. “He was nearly twenty years older than me, he was our professor when our relationship started. Regardless of what he has done for this war, people will hate him, despise him, and look for any reason to disparage his name. I cannot give them fuel for that. Everything he sacrificed will be overshadowed by the fact that he engaged in an inappropriate relationship with a student. I will not allow his memory to be tarnished because of me. You know the truth, and that’s enough for me.”

Moving over to the pensieve, she made the locket reappear, opening it up to transfer the memories to it for safekeeping. Swirling her wand through the liquid, she brought the silver wisps together and with a deft flick, made them trail from the basin into the crystal vial inside her necklace. Sealing the crystal, she snapped the locket and once again dropped it down her shirt.

“Now, what did Severus have to tell you?” She asked, feeling good about having direction and purpose.

She watched as Harry absently rubbed at his scar, a weight of dread dropping into her stomach. The theory she had been trying to disprove for months was confirmed all at once when he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“There’s a reason I can hear them, the horcruxes. I think I’ve known for a while, and I think you have too.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said, her voice trembling.

“No, you need to get Professor Snape while it’s still safe for you. Then you need to kill the snake. Kill the snake and then it’s just him,” Harry said firmly.

“But-”

“No! Hermione, we won’t stand a chance otherwise. It has to be like this. You need to do this for me and for him.”

He grabbed her hand, his face hard and spine straight as they began to walk from the office. Standing in the doorway, they took one last look around them, both eyes settling on a portrait that was directly to the left of the desk. It was the only one that still had an occupant in it but something was slightly off about it. It was still, too still, in comparison to the other moving paintings that lined the office and corridors of the school.

“Hermione, I think…”

“Oh my God!” She yelled, running towards it and checking the gold script at the bottom.

_Severus Tobias Snape._

“Severus?” She desperately asked.

When she received no answer, she tapped on the frame, then on the canvas, before removing it from the wall and giving it a shake. His two-dimensional rendering remained unmoved.

“He’s not dead!” They both said in amazement.

“Accio, medi-kit!” She yelled, a slim, leather folio flying out from a hidden door and into her hands.

Opening it up her eyes quickly scanned the contents hoping it would be enough to save him, or at the very least make him stable enough so that a more deft hand could heal him fully. Tying it back up, she stuffed it into the beaded bag that hung from the loop of her jeans and looked to Harry.

“What are you doing? Go!” He ordered. “We need him, he’s the best fighter we have!”

Hermione quickly hugged Harry as she said, “Meeting you was one of the highlights of my life, Harry. I love you and am honored to have been able to call you my friend.”

“I love you too, Hermione,” he replied with thick emotion. “Now go!”

Hermione raced down the spiral stairs, rounding the corner to the Grand Staircase with a wild skid, as she began running down to the Entrance Hall. A bittersweet hope bloomed in her chest as she pushed her way around a questioning Ron and dashed into the courtyard, clamoring over the fallen giant once more as she reached the numerous steps that led back to the boathouse.

She took the steps as quickly as she could, running through her mind the order in which she needed to do things to help save his life. Her heart ached with the impending loss of Harry, knowing that it would affect her just as drastically as having thought she lost Severus. Before their time on the run, he had been her closest and dearest friend, but after Ron had left them, he had become her brother and the hole he would leave in her heart was one that would never fully heal.

Seeing the dock grow closer, she pushed herself to go faster, knowing the amount of time she had to save him was limited. As she had promised to help Harry defeat Voldemort so that Severus’s death wouldn’t be in vain, she swore that Harry’s sacrifice for them would also not be in vain. They needed Severus’s dueling talents and time was running out.

Sliding on the slick, moss covered rocks, she ripped her jeans at the knees, skinning the exposed skin and further damaging her hands, as she carelessly picked herself back up to keep going. Racing along the dock, she tried to slow herself down enough to make the narrow turn around the boat launch so her momentum didn’t cast her into the lake.

Entering the launch, she drew up short, her wand palmed and raised in attack before her mind could catch up and process her adrenaline powered response.

“Where is he?” She demanded.

At the same time, the teenage boy she guessed to be about her age, who also had his wand at the ready, demanded, “Who are you?”

Her stance didn’t waver, and nor did his, as they both silently appraised the other.

Hermione took in his black hair that reached just past his chin, with something caked to the strands, causing them to knot and mat. His face had several bruises that were simultaneously blooming and fading along one side, the other a soft alabaster color. The harsh line of his brow was strangely familiar to her, along with the seemingly fathomless onyx depth of his eyes. Looking at his long nose and full lips with their soft crepe coloring, her mouth parted in denial.

_This isn’t possible_ , she thought.

Her eyes traced down to his unmarred neck and from there took in his dress. He wore a worn black leather jacket that had a mix of dirt, dust, and blood on it. His faded shirt was ripped to shreds, exposing four angry reddish purple scars that were fading to pink then silver before her eyes along his chest. They reached from just below his right collarbone, down over his pectoral, and diagonally across his abdomen stopping at his hip.

It was a pattern she had developed an intimate knowledge of last year, further making her mind stutter. The facts were right before her but it couldn’t, shouldn’t be possible.

Forcing a dry swallow, she whispered, “Severus?”

His eyes went wide at the sound of his name, the only tell that helped support the idea that regardless of the resemblance this might not be her Severus.

“How do you know my name?” He asked with heavy accusation, his wand rising a bit higher into a more threatening position.

“You don’t remember me?” She asked, her heart cracking anew with the realization.

“No, should I?” He sneered, the curl of his lip a dead ringer for her Severus.

Taking a chance, she slowly began to lower her wand. Bringing it down by her side, she kept it in a loose hold so she appeared as non-threatening as possible.

“You might not be aware of this, but right now a war is going on and it isn’t safe for you here. Let me get you to the castle. You’ll be safe there, relatively speaking that is,” she said, taking a cautious step forward. “Also, I’m Hermione Granger. Am I correct in assuming you’re Severus Snape?”

“That’s impossible,” he replied.

“What is?”

“That you’re Hermione. This is supposed to be 1998 and you can’t be more than eighteen,” he said incredulously.

“So you do remember me?” She asked hopefully. “And yes it is 1998, I’m nineteen.”

“No, _I_ don’t,” he emphasized, “but _he_ said to wait here and some chit named Hermione would come back for him when it was safe. You can’t be her though, because I was, or I guess he was thirty-eight. You would have had to have been-”

“His student, yes,” she supplied.

The teenager that stood before her erupted in dry laughter as he started to lower his wand, making her bristle, despite knowing that without a doubt that he was somehow her Severus.

“Had a little, _When I Kissed the Teacher_ , action did ya?” He laughed.

“Oh, so you’ve always been an abrasive arsehole, how delightful,” she snapped.

“Prove it,” he demanded, all traces of humor gone as he glared at her.

“Prove what? That you’ve always been an arsehole or that I’m the Hermione, Severus was referring to?” She asked in a bored manner as though she had all the time in the world to play his games despite the rapidly ticking clock to the battle resuming.

“He did say you were insufferable. However, you’re supposed to be intelligent as well but all I see is a daft bint,” he huffed. “You must be one _hell_ of a shag.”

Hermione’s mouth dropped in disbelief as she took in the younger version of Severus that stood before her. Marching over to stand before his thin, towering frame, she reared her right arm back and punched him in the face.

“Fuck! I think you broke my nose!” He yelled.

“Good,” she seethed, before casting a full body bind on him, relishing in the harsh crack his body made as he dropped to the ground. “And _Don’t Stand So Close to Me_ or _Young Girl,_ would be more appropriate.”

Levitating his body, she began to make her way back towards the castle, cursing the very existence of the man she loved, and his shite head younger self.

_Severus Snape, I could kill you for this!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Torn Affections has a current estimate of 60 chapters and 200,000 to 250,000 words once fully written  
> \- The title of the chapter is a line from Alice in Wonderland  
> \- Yellow acacias are a flower with the meaning of "secret love/lovers"  
> \- Dum spiro spero, is Latin for "While I breathe, I hope"  
> \- The engraving in the locket says, "Dum spiro spero, And you are my breath"  
> \- Of course, the quotes from Deathly Hallows Part II belong to JKR and WB  
> \- When I Kissed the Teacher by Abba  
> \- Don't Stand So Close to Me by The Police  
> \- Young Girl by Gary Puckett  
> \- All songs mentioned can be found at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2qmbobKLLKKvD5xenUJvgY  
> \- Visual inspiration for the locket can be found at https://www.pinterest.com/pin/13159023900841747/


	6. Never Have I Ever... Been More Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Content Warning for Chapter:**   
>  **Brief mention of contemplating suicide in the past**

While in Limbo, it hadn’t fully registered in Severus’s head that the witch his former future self was in love with would be so young. There had been more important things on his mind in the moment. Like the fact that he would have been dead before he even celebrated his fortieth birthday, which even by muggle standards was young. Not to mention that he was about to be transported twenty years forward in time with nothing more than the shredded clothes he wore, a vial of memories about what his decisions at eighteen had cost him in the long run, and his wand. The farthest thing from his mind upon arrival was that the older him had mentioned Lily hoping his witch would move on to her son now that he was dead, implying that she was young enough to be Lily’s child and therefore his.

Having expected to be found by someone at least in their late twenties, the sight of the scraggly and dirty witch that couldn’t have been more than a year younger or older than him had been a shock. She had rounded into the boathouse with her chocolate and toffee colored hair springing free of her plait, her caramel eyes bright with hope and determination, only for them to shutter and loudly portray mistrust and hatred as she saw him. Caught in a standoff with her, he had appraised her under the guise of sizing her up as a threat.

The fine bones of her face and neck were cut into sharp relief from what looked like months of suffering from hunger. She had bruises and abrasions blooming across her face and her clothes were covered in copious amounts of dirt, ash, and more blood than any one person could lose and still survive. Physically she looked as though a strong wind would blow her away or too hard of a fall from tripping would break her, her diminutive stature not helping the image she portrayed. Her haggard face told a different story though. Her jaw was tight with determination and her eyes fiery as she sized him up with just as much intensity as he was giving off. Her entire stance dared him to try and get the upper hand on her and some innate, self-preserving voice within him warned that the power that subtlety radiated off of her was no illusion. This was a witch to be reckoned with and the Slytherin within him was instantly drawn in.

Then she had whispered his name and the wall of skepticism and anger fell, her face lighting up with renewed hope. The starting twitch of her chapped, dehydrated lips, betrayed her budding smile. It was transformative, as it tentatively grew on her face and became something he was eager to see in full bloom until realization dawned on him like a punch to the gut. And just like that, promises of not being a prick went out the window and he had ended up with a broken nose and in a full body bind.

Though his muscles were frozen and unable to visibly reflect it, Severus’s face was set into a deep scowl as the high handed witch smirked at him with a cocked eyebrow. She levitated his body and disillusioned him as she headed out of the boathouse, purposely knocking his head into the frame.

_Fucking harpy_ , he swore, as his head joined his nose in emanating a pulsing pain.  
  


From his prone position, he could see the early dawn banishing the night, the stars hidden from view as the sun’s rays began to lance its burning light across the sky, warming the inky blackness into a faint grey. Fog hung in the air casting a haze over what parts of Hogwarts and the Highlands that he could see, though he was unsure if it came from a natural morning occurrence or if it was the smoke remnants of whatever had been burning through the night. But given the way his throat burned with each coppery inhalation, he would guess that later.

As she finished ascending the stairs, more sounds, smells, and sights invaded his senses. In addition to the ash, the air was heavy with blood, burnt flesh, and the expelled waste that left the body upon death. The witch that had command of his person began to gag beside him, the sound coupling with the tossing of rubble and the crackling of things still on fire. Above him, he could see one of the castle’s ancient turrets collapse as the last of its structural holds gave way to the licking flames.

“We’ve been at battle with Voldemort and his followers for hours now,” she quietly explained. “We’ve had time to tend to our injured and deceased but that’s nearly up now and if I’m honest, I don’t know how much longer we can last.”

_Sweet Salazar, this is what it had come to?_

His body continued to float along beside her as they crossed the courtyard and took the stairs into the Entrance Hall. After his head had collided with the boathouse, the trip had been smooth and he was beginning to think maybe it had been an accident. However, with a subtle tilt of her wand, his body was flipped on his side and she began pushing him against the wall. He began a silent, rage fueled protest till he realized she was putting herself between him and whoever was coming towards them, unaware of her companion.

“Hermione! Where the _bloody_ hell have you been?” A voice demanded, its owner crowding into her, their, space. “And where is Harry?”

“He needed me to check on something for him after viewing Sev - _Professor_ Snape’s memories.”

_Ah, so no one knows about her little affair with the Death Eater turned Professor, interesting,_ he thought, filing the information away to use at a later date.

“And Harry?” The freckled redhead demanded.

“Ron, you know where he went. It had to be done,” she said with what was clearly a deceptive softness, given the way she had no problem acquainting him with her right hook.

“YOU LET HIM GO?”

The boy Severus assumed to be her friend stepped further into her space, prompting her to push him further into the wall, where he could feel the ridges of her spine press against his chest.

_How the fuck could he have let her end up like this?_ He thought, cursing the man he became. _He was supposed to be in love with her and yet he let her waste away to this._

The ginger’s anger renewed and Severus saw Hermione’s hold begin to tighten in her wand as the feeling of being threatened settled over her. He began concentrating on his silent casting, hoping that with only his fingers brushing along the smooth wood of his wand he would be able to release himself from Hermione’s body bind. He didn’t know these people or their relationship dynamics but the boy seemed on the verge of cracking and he wasn’t going to risk the impending explosion landing on the witch that was using her body as a physical shield around him while he was prone and defenseless.

He had been mastering casting without a wand but could only do it verbally and on the reverse, he could cast silently but needed the conduit of his wand to do so. Straining his will, wisps of magic began to spark and were trying to flare to life within him but they were dying off before they reached the tips of his fingers that just barely touched his wand.

“Ronald,” she placated. “You don’t understand-”

Her words were interrupted as a cold echo exploded within their ears and bounced off the walls of Hogwarts, drawing everyone’s attention out the doors of the Entrance Hall.

“Harry Potter is dead. He was killed as he ran away, trying to save himself while you lay down your lives for him. We bring you his body as proof that your hero is gone.”

“Severus, I need to get you to safety. They cannot find you, you’re supposed to be dead and unless you were a prodigy duelist I cannot risk you going out there and revealing you are, in fact, not dead,” Hermione breathed in a quiet panic.

The voice of the Dark Lord continued to carry through them as she slowly began directing her wand to guide his body along the wall. As more and more students and professors began making their way outside to verify what they were being told, she slipped up the Grand Staircase with him and quickly made her way to the headmaster’s tower, the voice growing louder as they got further from the congregation.

“YELLOW ACACIAS!” She yelled at the gargoyle trying to be heard. “AFTER I LEAVE, NO ONE IS ALLOWED IN WITHOUT THAT PASSWORD AND HE CANNOT COME OUT!” She instructed, pointing to his disillusioned body that was coming back into view.

She positioned him within the spiral staircase and stood at his floating feet as it wound them up to the office door. Once inside she lowered him to the ground and canceled the spell on him as she turned her back to him, opening the little bag that hung from her jeans.

“He’s gone silent, that can’t be good,” she muttered in obvious observation, as she turned back around, her wand curiously taping against her sternum. “I don’t know exactly what Severus gave to Harry before he died but it’s all I have to offer at the moment. It should begin to fill in some of the twenty years you’ve missed or can’t remember,” she rapidly explained, shoving a glass vial filled with silver strands of memories into his palm. “I don’t know how to access your chambers from this office, he was made Headmaster just before I went on the run but you may be able to find them and inside more information. Whatever you do, just _please_ stay here. I cannot fail him again by losing you.”

Before he could even utter one syllable of a response, she was running out the office door, wards raining into place over the doors and windows as she went.

Severus pulled out his wand and began throwing spells to disengage a variety of wards against the door, hastily ducking and wrapping shields around himself as they were rebounded and sent hurtling back towards him in growing balls of flame.

“Fuck!” He swore, after the last one vaporized against his shield. “Who the hell taught her that? And what are the chances she’ll teach me?”

Seeing the glowing pensieve in the corner of the room, he made his way over to it, rolling the vial in his hand. Sliding his hand into his pocket, he extracted the other his older self had given him and examined them both. The one she had given him had been tailored specifically for Potter’s kid which that alone made him reluctant to view them, but the witch had said she thought there might be helpful information within that could help him bridge the gap of what had happened during the years he had jumped.

With a shrug of one shoulder, he uncorked both vials and titled their thick glass over the reflective liquid, and watched the long strands trickle out and circle the basin, like drops of oil in a bowl of water. He placed the tip of his wand in, taking care to only allow it contact with the memories, and began to mix both sets together before stretching them out, looking to see where it all started.

He quickly sped through the glimpses of himself in the park with Lily and Petunia, along with several other encounters he had experienced with her and her older sister before they started at school. He continued to scroll through his first encounter with the soon to be named Marauders and passed over the Sorting Ceremony that had sent him and Lily into rival houses. He viciously tugged his wand to skip over the horrible events that had happened after sitting his Defense OWL when he had called Lily a mudblood, along with the days and weeks that followed as he had desperately tried to apologize. The next memory that came to the forefront was the continuation of earlier that night and that seemed as good a starting point as any to him. Slowing down the rapid replay, he watched it tick by till the moment came that he awoke in the hospital wing and plunged his face into the stone basin ready to see the beginning of his would-be past and future.

His body spiraled down into the memory, dropping him a dizzying heap as it straightened itself out.

_“He’s lucky to be alive Albus,” Madam Pomfrey hissed, beside his bed. “Black’s latest stunt nearly got him killed. Honestly, I’m shocked, Potter was even able to get him here before he crossed the river.”_

_“Be that as it may, but the risk is still too great. Remus needs to sit his NEWTs if he has any hope of integrating with regular society, not to mention Sirius has a bright future ahead of him, this will only ruin it. No one is to know what truly happened tonight. Do I make myself clear Poppy?”_

_The school’s mediwitch scowled at Dumbledore as she bustled away in a flurry of robes to go tend to a bed hidden behind partitions across the aisle._

_“Mister Snape, I know you are not asleep. Do you understand, that no one is to know? As both your parents are deceased and you are of age there is no one with which to inform of tonight’s events, therefore they did not happen,” He stressed._

_“You can’t be serious!” He cried in outrage. “You’ve been allowing a werewolf to wander the halls of this school for seven years and tonight he was used as a weapon to nearly kill me and all you’re concerned about is him taking his NEWTs and that Black keeps his ‘bright future?’ And what of mine Professor?” He spat, trying to sit up only for his stitched chest to open again and begin blooming with blood._

_“You have made your choices Severus, there is no coming back from the path you are walking. If you wish to finish out the last few weeks of school and sit your NEWTs so you may retain your ill-gotten apprenticeship, I would suggest you do just that. Otherwise, I will be forced to expel you from the school,” the headmaster threatened._

The memory blurred out and another faded in, offering a brief glimpse of what his older self had said in Limbo about Lily steadfastly ignoring his existence in the hospital wing while she visited Potter and Lupin. The hard mask the thirty-eight year old had been wearing in place of curtaining his hair made its first appearance as he sat alone, pulling a book off the end table, pretending to be unaffected by the slight.

Another twisted into view that showed him as he looked now standing with Avery, Mulciber, and Rosier, all four clad in long black robes, with their hoods drawn up. A person knelt before each of them, wands digging into their necks as their heads were wrenched back by fistfuls of hair, looks of pure, unmasked terror on each soon to be victim’s face. Severus felt his eyes go wide and his stomach drop as the memory began to play.

_“The muggle filth that lives in ignorance alongside us is beginning to bleed over into our world. More and more of their bitches are birthing offspring that are unworthy of the magic that is bestowed upon them._

_“Their disgusting, dirty blooded children come into our world, our society, and demand we bend and shape to their ways! They are the outsiders and yet we are expected to learn of their world and their behaviors and adopt them as our own and call it progress! Our world needs to be cleansed of their kind before irreparable damage can be done._

_“A new order is rising, one whose foundation is laid with superior breeding and skills. Each of you that stands here before me, has been personally selected to help blaze the trail of preserving our way of life. Your skills and attributes are invaluable to me and tonight I will show you just how much I appreciate you all by giving you the coveted symbol of my Inner Circle._

_“Blood in, blood out. May only the pure prevail.”_

Severus physically recoiled as he watched himself slide his wand down the carotid artery of his victim, before shoving them forward by their hair and stepping back from their pooling blood with a sneer.

The next several memories played out as a rapid montage of terrorizing muggles, torture, murder, the vile things the Dark Lord had wanted him to experiment with and create, and the glowing praise and acceptance for his successes. On the reverse, there was prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus under the guise of educating them to overcome it, pride shredding acts they were forced to perform under the Imperious, and horrific punishments that had him rubbing at areas along his body that would have born the scars of what was done to him.

Several memories faded into moments of him alone in Spinner’s End, shakily drawing his wand along his wrists as he contemplated his death, all of them ending with him passed out drunk on the floor of his childhood living room.

Severus yanked himself out of the memories, stumbling several steps back before falling to the floor and turning to his hands and knees as he hurled the contents of his stomach onto the carpet. He felt his stomach twist and clench as it tried to expel more, but only wet gags would come, long ropes of saliva falling from his mouth. Sitting back on his heels he flicked his wand at the mess vanishing it as he wiped his mouth on a strip of fabric that had been the collar of his t-shirt. Casting a charm to cleanse the air of the odor his sick had created, he heaved in his breaths, trying to dispel the shaking of his limbs and regulate his body temperature to ease the cold sweat that lined his spine.

He closed his eyes, trying to banish the viewed memories from his mind only to see them begin to play out once more. Snapping his eyes back open, he looked back to the pensieve and wondered what else awaited him in there and if he would have the mental fortitude to go back in and find out.

Moving his booted feet out from under him, he fell back onto his rear and rested his elbows on his knees. He began to card his hands through his blood knotted hair as best he could, forcing his fingers to rake through the resistance, while trying to come to grips with what he had done, or would have done, had Death not sent Lily to intervene.

When he was inside the memories, watching them play out, he could feel the regret and remorse his other self had been experiencing during his atrocities and afterwards. There was even a weight of guilt that hung over everything that he knew came from the man he grew into who still carried the lives he had taken upon his shoulders twenty years later.

That guilt had instantly transferred from the memories of his old self and into him. He was beginning to blame himself for the loss of life that had happened, that he had taken and yet hadn’t. The entire idea scrambled his head and made him feel like he had been untethered from reality and was left to drift off to sea, lost forever, his second chance already gone before he had even been able to try.

Even worse, was how easily he was able to understand, accept, and relate to who he would have been. He knew the path he was on before being attacked was wrong and he still continued the course. He could see it in his memory self, that he had continued to know that the cause he joined and the leader he pledged his life to were both immoral, and yet he still chose to follow because of a twisted sense of belonging and being needed, and also a faint undercurrent of fear at what would be done to him upon defecting.

He had sold his soul on the promise of power, notoriety, and acceptance, and the most twisted thing of all was that those promises were being met and that was what had ultimately held him in service to the Dark Lord despite the nightmare of a person he had become.

Looking back at the pensieve, Severus let out a stuttered sigh. He knew the longer he was out of it, the less likely he would go back in so that he didn’t have to see anymore. He had been given a second chance though and he needed to learn from his would-be past if he had any hope of not making the same errors twice in one lifetime. More than anything though, he wanted to know what exactly his other self had done in his short life to warrant such an intervention from Death because from where he stood bearing witness, that man had been wholly undeserving of such a gift _and_ of the witch that had fallen in love with him.

With a fortifying breath, he pushed himself to his feet and faced the pensieve once more, plunging his head back in to resume his history lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Sections of dialogue have been taken from canon and it of course belongs to JKR.  
> \- A huge thank you to everyone who is reading, commenting, leaving kudos, bookmarking, subscribing, favoriting, and following. Y'all make my day with all your support and engagement.  
> \- Once again, thank you to the lovely ladies that turn this and SCTT into something readable. Without them, this would be a massive mess of typos, missing sections of text, and littered with repeated paragraphs. Snapes_know_it_all and Slytherclaw1917, y'all rock and I love you both.  
> \- If you want to join the Facebook group it can be found here, https://www.facebook.com/groups/401487450880977  
> \- Pinterest holds all the visuals and inspiration for the story, so if you want to check anything out that can be found here, https://www.pinterest.com/SlytherinLovesAGryffindor/torn-affections/  
> \- Also, any music that has been mentioned so far and that will be coming in the story, is getting compiled into a playlist and that is here, https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2qmbobKLLKKvD5xenUJvgY


	7. Never Have I Ever... Been More Broken

Voldemort’s body hit the ground with a thump of finality, his blank, expressionless eyes staring up into the brightening morning sky. For a brief moment, everyone on either side had suspended their duels and stood in silent shock, while their minds processed the scene before them. Then all at once, the resounding cracks of apparition had begun echoing across the courtyard, as his Death Eaters and unmarked followers hurried to escape in the face of their Lord’s defeat. Stunners and body bind curses quickly flew from the wand points of those that had defended Harry and Hogwarts, capturing as many as they could, uncaring for the harsh collision their enemies’ bodies made with the ground. Cheers, congratulations, and exclamations of disbelief rang out over the school’s grounds in a deafening symphony, as everyone rushed towards Harry in celebration.

Hermione ran for him, wanting to see and feel for herself that he had somehow done the impossible and had once again survived the killing curse, having missed the astonishing revelation while inside the headmaster’s office. Reaching the edges of the jubilant chaos, she was intercepted by Ron, who picked her up and swung her around with exuberance.

“We did it! Can you believe it, Hermione? We  _ actually _ did it!” He shouted, lowering her back to the ground, his large and awkward hands pulling her closer to him.

She quickly bent herself back, placing her palms up between the two of them to avoid his overly pursed lips that were trying to make contact with hers.

“Hermione, what is it?” He questioned, his brow scrunching as he gave her a quizzical look before trying again.

“Ron, stop,” she protested, pushing him back and slipping out of his hold.

Spotting Harry trying to escape his overzealous admirers, she said, “Just not right now, we’ll talk later.”

Keeping her arms tight against her body, she too tried to escape the growing crowd that was beginning to trap her within their ranks, leaving a confused Ron behind. She was jostled about as people attempted to touch and hug her, all of them wanting as much a piece of her as they had Harry. Her senses quickly became overwhelmed as the shouted congratulations began to grow in frequency and volume, her skin crawling as though they had touched her bare and not through her grimy, battle-worn clothes. The faces around her began to blur as she frantically looked for an escape, the air becoming too thin to properly fill her lungs, her chest constricting in protest from the lack of oxygen.

She gave a sharp yelp as someone’s hand wrapped around her wrist. She desperately worked to pry their fingers off of her only to be yanked through the assembly back to the outer edges. In a quick flash, a slippery fabric was thrown over her head and she found herself squished against Harry as he raised a finger to his lips. The phantom hand that had been squeezing her chest, eased its hold on her as she registered that she had been engulfed within the relative safety of his invisibility cloak. Standing directly behind him, she reached her hands up to his shoulders and they began to move as one, navigating themselves away from the mass of people.

Coming back into the castle, they tucked themselves into the small alcove just beneath the Grand Staircase. Harry cast the stolen muffliato charm from their sixth year as she set a notice-me-not into place, affording them a modicum of privacy. Safe behind their charms, he tugged the invisibility cloak off of them, Hermione silently taking it from his hands and folding it up to store inside her beaded bag. After cinching it closed and checking the knot that had kept it tied to her side for nearly a year, she flung her frail arms around his neck, kissing the side of his face, before squeezing his equally weakened body.

“Promise me, that we will never,  _ ever _ , have to do this again,” she said into his neck with a short, relieved laugh.

Taking a step back from him, she turned to put her back against the small wall and sank to the blessedly cool stone floor. With a heavy sigh, Harry pulled on the legs of his jeans and dropped down to join her, wrapping an arm over her shoulder and resting the side of his head atop her own.

“Are you kidding? After all this, I’m questioning my thoughts on becoming an auror. I’m thinking maybe I should have you teach me how to knit and hone my cooking skills with Mrs. Weasley. Then I can market myself as a house-husband to some career driven witch,” he joked.

Hermione nudged his shoulder with her own, chuckling at the image of Harry in a frilly pink apron, complete with a large knotted bow in the back. The more she added to the image, the more her chuckling grew. It evolved into a full belly laugh that swiftly descended into an unhinged guffaw, before the dam holding her emotions back burst. Everything she had tucked away to deal with at a later, more convenient time from the last several hours, weeks, and year, poured out in a deluge. Violent sobs racked her body as she curled against his side and began to soak his soiled clothing with her tears. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt, trying to tether herself to him as she felt the remnants of her world shatter around her, each jagged piece shredding what remained of her heart.

Since the end of June, she had been fast tracked on a road that led to a living hell. She had been forced to watch Severus walk out of his classroom and send himself deep into the fray of spying, without a single soul to have his back while surrounded by the enemy. The aftermath of that night had left her final days as a student at Hogwarts filled with the disparaging whispers of his character and the spewing vitriol that had come from the mouths of her friends and allies. By the time they were finally sent on their way home from school, she had gone completely numb to those around her, the shutting off of her emotions being the only way she could remain functioning.

Then after arriving back in the muggle world he had sought her out with a warning of her parents’ being on the top of the kill list. They only had a few days with which to settle her parents’ affairs, irreversibly erase the existence of magic, and herself, from their memories, and get them sent far, far away so no one, herself included, would ever be able to find them. Once Monica and Wendell Wilkins had been sent off to begin their newly manufactured lives away from Voldemort, she and Severus had entrapped two violent criminals that had been at large in the muggle world for some time, abducting them off the streets of London to pose as the Grangers. She had sat on the back of his motorbike in a car park across from her parents’ practice, her arms wrapped tightly around him and her face buried into his back while he watched several Death Eaters descend upon the office in the early evening hours. They had made quick work of killing the criminals who bore her parents’ names and blowing up the practice that had been the Grangers’ legacy, sealing the work they had done to remove her parents’ existence from her life.

Following her self orphaning, Hermione had spent two bittersweet weeks with Severus, hidden away in Cokeworth at Spinner’s End. They had been able to spend countless hours together, without hurry and only mild interruptions, given his status as a wanted fugitive in the wizarding world. Those days and nights spent exploring each other and openly loving him had been her happiest during the last year, but each one had been heavy with the knowledge that things between them would be unable to last. When their time together had run out, she had left behind a significant part of her heart with him and had taken an even larger part of his with her, dutifully carrying the symbol of his unspoken love around her neck, hidden from view.

Then the Ministry had fallen and with it, the mounting tension of the impending war snapped. She, Harry, and Ron had gone on the run and began to hunt for the remaining horcruxes and a manner in which to destroy them. Every single day had been a battle and a struggle not only to succeed but to survive. Every win was met with a setback of equal measure. They had infiltrated the Ministry and had successfully retrieved the locket, only for Ron to get splinched in their hasty escape. When she had finally made the realization that the Sword of Gryffindor would be able to destroy the horcruxes, the exciting moment of finally gaining direction was fractured by Ron’s abandonment of her and Harry. Severus’s forethought in brewing and helping her to meticulously pack the tiny purse had saved Harry’s life after their run-in with Nagini in Godric’s Hollow, but when it came time to save his life, there had been nothing left of his creation. The retrieval of the Sword had been a colossal win, one that had seemed to not be cursed until several months later when Harry’s slip of the tongue had triggered the taboo, setting off a horrific chain of events. And after the weeks of healing, she had required from that Easter, it was time to retrieve the cup. That plan had gone sideways from the moment they had entered Gringotts but had ultimately worked out to be a win for them when things ended in the culmination of the final battle happening on their terms.

Victory was theirs but it had come with a hefty price tag. The war had permanently altered their bodies, minds, and emotions, forever casting a shadow upon their lives.

Hermione was unsure of how long she had sat curled against Harry, desperately crying into his body while his own silent tears spilled into her hair. However, the numb feeling to her rear, the swollen pressure of her eyes, and the strangled hiccups that left her body indicated that it had been some time. And yet she felt as though she had barely even scratched the surface of the bevy of emotions that were welled up within her. With a difficult breath, she pulled back from him and drug her hands over her eyes, and scrubbed at her face, trying to remove as much evidence as she could.

Harry let out an aggressive sniffle as he dropped his head back against the wall and quietly asked, “Were you unable to save him?”

She let out a short, angry sound before responding, “I don’t even know how to begin explaining what happened. You’re just going to have to see this to believe it.”

“After everything that’s happened, I’ll believe anything.”

Standing up, she offered him her hands and with an exaggerated tug, helped pull him to his feet.

Pulling the cloak back out and canceling their charms, she said, “Trust me, this you have to see. I don’t even fully believe or understand it myself and I desperately want to.”

Throwing the cloak over themselves, they once more moved as a cohesive unit, no thought going into their matched steps. Stepping out of their hiding spot, Hermione saw that the grieving was truly beginning as the celebrations started to quiet in the face of the cleanup. Those capable of healing were once again bustling about, tending to the injured, while an unenviable few were tasked with cleaning and identifying the dead. She could faintly hear the sounds of an ensuing argument over who should be named the interim Minister during the reconstruction of the government and school, a bitter thought sparking in her mind that maybe nothing had really changed as words about the person needing to have the right blood status and house affiliation to send the proper message about their new world drifted over to her.

Approaching the gargoyle, for the third time that morning, she lifted the hem of the cloak and gave what she knew was a brittle smile to the statue as she mumbled the password.

“Now is not the time to make lasting decisions,” he answered sagely, stepping aside to allow them entry.

“He’s a statue, what does he know?” Harry muttered.

“A statue that has guarded the Head Office since it was occupied by the four founders of Hogwarts. You do not spend a thousand years with the wisest of witches and wizards without picking up a thing or two,” the statue snapped, kicking its wing out to trip Harry as he walked past to get on the step.

“He has a point, Mister ‘I’ll market myself as a house-husband,’” she chuckled, tucking the cloak back into the bag as the stairs started to spiral up.

When the stairs stopped in front of the mahogany door, Hermione pulled out her wand and began lowering the wards she had used to keep Severus locked inside. After the last one glitched out of sight, her hand hovered over the iron handle with a slight tremble. Letting her eyes flutter close, she took as deep of a breath as her stuffy nose would allow, rounding her shoulders back and raising her head, before wrapping her fingers around the handle to push through the door.

Severus stood in the center of the office with his wand raised and his stance slightly wide, his dark eyes watching her every move as she stepped aside to allow Harry in. His alabaster skin had taken on a grey, washed out pallor in her absence, making a sickly contrast between his face and blood coated, raven hair. There was a faint sheen of sweat that dotted across his hairline and more slicking down his body, making his ripped shirt cling to his abdomen in several places.

“You should sit down,” she advised, noticing the wavering of his wand.

“Blimey Hermione!” Harry exclaimed. “That’s… I mean I just saw him in-”

“Severus Snape, meet Harry Potter. Harry, meet eighteen year old Severus,” she introduced.

She made her way to the pensieve as he stumbled back into the desk.

“Told you.”

“Get away from that,” he hissed at her, as she went to put her wand into the basin.

Looking over her shoulder at him, she maintained eye contact as she defiantly placed the tip in and began to swirl the memories together for extraction.

“And what exactly do you think you’re going to be able to do to stop me?” She taunted, turning back around to observe the memories splitting themselves and filing into two large wisps.

“Okay, you win, Hermione. I  _ never _ would have believed this without seeing it,” Harry conceded. “But how do you know how old he is?”

“I watched the same memories he gave you, Potter. I would imagine you would be able to put two and two together based on what you had seen of her with him,” he mocked. “But since you seem to not be in possession of two brain cells with which to rub together, let me spell it out for you. She used to get fu-”

“The scars on his chest are from the night Sirius lured him to the Shrieking Shack and Remus almost killed him,” Hermione swiftly interrupted, glaring at a smirking Severus. “His birthday is in January and it happened the moon cycle before they sat for their NEWTs, ergo he’s eighteen.”

Grabbing the two vials that had been dropped on the floor, she extracted each bundle of memories and placed them back within the slender confines of the glass. Tucking the one that Severus had given to Harry while dying in the boathouse into her purse, she held the other between her fingers and watched the oily tendrils slowly float back and forth.

“Also if I recall Severus, you were still a virgin when that happened, so you will be incapable of spelling anything out for Harry’s understanding,” she dug, making Harry snort. “Now,  _ where _ did you get these?” She asked, wrapping the second vial tightly within her fist. “He never would have been so careless as to leave something like this laying around.”

“Merlin, you are such a bitch,” he muttered.

“I heard that.”

“Wasn’t trying to hide it.”

“Listen here, you arrogant arse wipe!” She yelled, advancing on him only to have Harry jump between them as Severus stood up from where he had been leaning against the desk his hands turned out in mock welcome.

Harry cupped her face with his hands blocking her peripheral and hunched his back to easily fill her vision with only him as he said, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, I mean bloody hell I only found out about you and Professor Snape a few hours ago, but maybe let’s try to  _ not _ purposely goad him while we figure out how that one is here and the other is not. Yeah?”

With a hard glare still in place, she reluctantly nodded her head, physically biting her tongue against an acidic retort as the younger version of Severus scoffed at them.

“Besides,” Harry added, stepping back from her, “I don’t think Hogwarts can withstand another battle in its current condition. You two would probably bring down what remains.”

“Didn’t take you long at all to trade him in after his death I see,” Severus commented snidely. “And here he had been so adamant while in Limbo that you received this.”

He pulled out a thick fold of parchment, with her name scrawled across in Severus’s familiar penmanship, waving it around before her. Hermione took an involuntary step towards him, her hand reaching out to take it, before he snatched it back, shaking his head at her with a cruel smile.

“Just like Lily and myself, you obviously meant more to him than he did to you.”

Hermione saw red at his comment comparing her and Harry’s mother, given what she knew of their history. She re-advanced for him with her hand raised, poised to slap him. As her movement sliced through the air, his hand shot out, capturing her wrist and yanking her to him. He towered over her, her head falling back with the tilt of her neck so she could meet his piercing stare. They were near flush together, their arms the only barrier preventing their chests from coming into full contact with each other. His exhales breezed over her face heating her skin, while his inhales inflated his lungs just enough to cause his body to whisper against her own.

He was a bit more slight in his build than he had been the last time she had been this close to him, not yet having fully finished the transition from scrawny to wiry. And his height was shorter too, the two or three missing inches something that he had probably gained the summer following his Hogwarts graduation. Standing so close, the familiar smell of eucalyptus and juniper invaded her nostrils as her mind picked past the smell of dried blood, making the tense muscles in her arm relax and the palm of her hand turn to come in contact with his exposed skin. The quick brush of contact was an instant balm making her eyes close as she began to fade into a memory.

Severus’s breathing hitched at the touch for a mere second before his less smooth and not as deep voice broke her budding delusion to say, “I don’t think so little witch. Trick me once and all that.”

Sneering up at him, she stomped on his foot, and ripped her arm free, snatching the letter from his other hand. Turning back to Harry, she reverently ran her fingers over the inky indentions that spelled her name, before tucking the parchment into her beaded bag and taking a second to compose herself after nearly falling prey to the tricks of her assuredly broken mind.

“Did you say, he gave that to you in Limbo?” Harry puzzled.

“What of it?” Severus countered, crossing his arms and letting his hair drop forward as he went back to leaning against the desk, the smallest trace of a flush fading from his cheeks as Hermione turned back around.

“So you’re not him? Professor Snape I mean.”

“Well that’s obvious,” Hermione muttered, prompting Harry to give her a hard nudge in correction.

“Then how did you get here? I mean, I only got to come back because of the…” He trailed off and looked at her touching his scar before adding, “because of the, you know.”

“That thing ending up saving you?” She asked incredulously.

“Both times actually. Ironic isn’t it?”

“Holy Merlin,” she breathed.

As her gaze swept back to Severus awaiting his answer, her eyes glanced over the portrait of his older self still unawakened. Bringing her focus back to it, she continued to examine it, her mind slowly beginning to work the pieces she had into place.

“If you’re here…” she started. “And that isn’t animated… Then where is...”

“He took my place in ’78, and after everything, I saw in  _ that _ ,” he said, gesturing to the pensieve. “I couldn’t be happier for the trade. I can’t fucking believe that’s how my life turned out.”

“Say that again,” she challenged, hoping that if he repeated himself the words would be different from what she had heard.

“My future self took my place back in time so that I could come forward and live out a second life here.”

“HE DID WHAT?” Hermione shrieked, feeling the last shred of her hope wither and die off as she was forced to relinquish the idea that maybe her Severus would come back to her.


End file.
